


Reading in the Hall

by The_Gamer



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:06:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23719426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Gamer/pseuds/The_Gamer
Summary: Everyone gets trapped in the Great Hall and forced to read Harry Potter books from the future.What will these books do to change the tide of an upcoming war?
Comments: 21
Kudos: 74





	1. In the Hall and the first chapter

Harry screamed loudly as he landed on his back somewhere that wasn't home. 

"HARRY!" a voice cried. He knew that voice and sure enough when he opened his eyes he was staring up at Hermione looking at him worriedly. 

"Help?" He asked holding his hands out to her. 

"Ron!" Hermione called. 

The red head came into view and the two pulled Harry to his feet. 

"Nope!" Harry hissed leaning heavely on Ron when his left leg gave out. 

"Easy there, mate." Ron said, "Come on lets get you on the couch." 

With Ron and Hermione's help Harry was able to get on to a comfortable looking couch between Snape and Remus. 

"Hello, Snape, can I have a Pain Releaver Potion, Please?" Harry asked, "When I get my vision back from it being so blurry I'll cut up your spiders for you." 

"I'll hold you to that, Potter." Severus replied and handed him the Potion. 

Harry downed it in one go.

* * *

"Attention please!" 

Harry focused on the man standing at the podium. He looked around why was the hall so crowded. He petted Padfoot whose head was in his lap. 

"I am Cornilus Fudge Minister of Magic. I will read the letter that brought us all here." 

_Dear Everyone,_

_We have brought you here to read a seires of seven books. Until you read these books you are not allowed to leave the Great Hall. Meals will be provided and when it is time sleeping arrangements will be provided. Rest breaks are to be after every chapter._

_If you need or want anything else Harry Potter need only ask for it._

_There are three Muggles sitting in a cage. This cage is for their own safety as it will keep all spells, and Potions from getting to these three._

_You are to read the books so that you can understand the past and change the future. These books maybe about one person but the life of this one person effects all of you. It is our hope that you all learn from what you read._

_So as to prevent reading ahead only one book will appear at a time during breaks and at night the pages will go blank. Yes, I'm talking about you Hermone Granger and Remus Lupin._

_Well cheers everyone!_

_Harry we're so sorry but we have to do this._

Hermione and Remus were blushing. 

Harry moaned and picked up the book. 

"Lunch please!" Harry called, in to the silent hall. "Something light but please no soup. Oh, and a milk too please." Trays appeared in front of those not sitting at the tables. Food appeared on the tables. "Thank you!" 

He delayed by eating his lunch.

* * *

Harry sighed. 

"Okay, everyone lets get this over with!" He called into the silent hall. "Lets see......I choose....." his eyes scanned the crowd. "Tom Marvolo Riddle to read the first chapter." 

"Who?" Several people asked. 

"ARE YOU INSANE?!" Ginny broke out. Then blushed when everyone looked at her. 

"I must agree with Miss. Weasley." Dumbledore said. 

"Tom Riddle come to the podium." Harry insisted. "Tom. Tom. Tom......" 

"SILENCE!" Voldemort demanded standing up. "SAY THAT NAME AGAIN!" 

"Tom Marvolo Riddle ." Harry said. 

Severus facepalmed shaking his head. He smacked Potter on the back of the head and took the book to the podium for his Lord. 

"Harry, you are pushing your luck and my patience." Voldemort stated reaching the podium and sitting on the stool. 

"You have patience?" Harry deadpanned. "OW! Quit doing that! Headmaster, you're teacher is abusing the students!" 

"Severus, don't hit Harry." Dumbledore said, idly unsticking two lemon drops. "Please procede, Tom." 

"I hate both of you." Voldemort stated. "Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone." 

**Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.**

"Too right." Vernon said, from the cage. 

"Shut up." Harry snapped. "Dobby, please Sting my uncle." 

Vernon jumped and yelped though no one saw the house elf. 

"Thank you, Dobby. " Harry said, sipping his milk. "Tom." 

**They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.**

"This sounds boring already." Draco Malfoy said. 

No one disagreed with him.

**Mr. Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills.**

"What are drills?" Someone from the Slytherin called. 

"Hermione." Harry said. 

Hermione stood up and explained drills to the hall then sat back down. 

"Tom." 

**He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large mustache. Mrs. Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbors.**

"I do not!" Petunia snapped. 

"Some things don't change." Severus muttered forgetting that he was sitting next to Potter. 

Harry frowned at Snape wondering what he meant by that. 

**The Dursleys had a small son called Dudley and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere.**

"Yeah right!" The Weasley Twins called. "We've met the idiot!" 

"I'm right here!" Dudley shouted back his face burning. "and I'm not an idiot!" 

"Really?" Harry asked. " I think you should look the word idiot up, Dud. That is of course if you'd learned to read yet. Dobby!" 

A dictionary landed on Dudley's head causing laughter. 

"Thank you, Dobby." 

Voldemort wanted to roll his eyes.

**The Dursleys had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret, and their greatest fear was that somebody would discover it. They didn't think they could bear it if anyone found out about the Potters.**

"There is nothing wrong with Potters!" Remus growled. He grunted when he was hit on the head by a rolling pin. 

**Mrs. Potter was Mrs. Dursley's sister, but they hadn't met for several years; in fact, Mrs. Dursley pretended she didn't have a sister, because her sister and her good-for-nothing husband were as unDursleyish as it was possible to be.**

"Hermione." 

"UnDursleyish isn't even a word!" 

**The Dursleys shuddered to think what the neighbors would say if the Potters arrived in the street. The Dursleys knew that the Potters had a small son, too, but they had never even seen him. This boy was another good reason for keeping the Potters away; they didn't want Dudley mixing with a child like that.**

"A child like what?" Cornilus asked.

"Like this." Harry said, and summoned the sandwhich that Draco Malfoy was about to bite into to him and catching it easily. "Magic." 

The outrage was instant but Harry enjoyed the sandwhich. 

"SILENCE!" Voldemort bellowed making a lot of people shiver and flinch. 

**When Mr. and Mrs. Dursley woke up on the dull, gray Tuesday our story starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country. Mr. Dursley hummed as he picked out his most boring tie for work, and Mrs. Dursley gossiped away happily as she wrestled a screaming Dudley into his high chair.None of them noticed a large, tawny owl flutter past the window. At half past eight, Mr. Dursley picked up his briefcase, pecked Mrs. Dursley on the cheek, and tried to kiss Dudley good-bye but missed, because Dudley was now having a tantrum and throwing his cereal at the walls.**

The mothers of the room tossed dirty looks at the blushing Dudley.

**"Little tyke," chortled Mr. Dursley as he left the house. He got into his car and backed out of number four's drive.**

"You condoned such terrible behavior?" Molly Weasley demanded. "Are you serious?" 

"A note has just appeared." Voldemort told the room they'd all seen it. "It says _There can be no point deductions during the reading. Arrests can not be made during this story either so will the person hiding in his animagus form shift back._ " 

Padfoot became Sirius Black causing gasps. He streatched and popped his back. 

"No, I'm Sirius." Sirius said. 

"BOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Harry lead the crowd. 

Sirius pulled a wand out and enlarged the couch. He sat down between Harry and Remus. 

"Missed you, puppy. This should be fun right?" 

"Nope." Harry said, shaking his head. "Tom." 

**It was on the corner of the street that he noticed the first sign of something peculiar -- a cat reading a map. For a second, Mr. Dursley didn't realize what he had seen -- then he jerked his head around to look again. There was a tabby cat standing on the corner of Privet Drive, but there wasn't a map in sight.**

"Who wants to bet that's McGonagall?" Sirius said, jovilly. 

"You're on, cousin." Nymphadora Tonks cheered, sitting on the arm of the couch next to Remus. "One Galleon." 

They both slammed the Galleons on Remus' tray. 

"AUROR TONKS!" Amelia Bones scolded. "You are on the Job!" 

"Yeah, and I'm watching a suspected Death Eater." Tonks called back. "Two actually and if you want to get technical, Madam I got off about an hour ago."

Amelia Bones looked at Rufus Scrimgeour to confirm this. 

"She is right ma'am she's off work." Scrimgeour the Head of the Auror Department confirmed. 

"Very well." 

**What could he have been thinking of? It must have been a trick of the light. Mr. Dursley blinked and stared at the cat. It stared back. As Mr. Dursley drove around the corner and up the road, he watched the cat in his mirror. It was now reading the sign that said Privet Drive -- no, looking at the sign; cats couldn't read maps or signs. Mr. Dursley gave himself a little shake and put the cat out of his mind. As he drove toward town he thought of nothing except a large order of drills he was hoping to get that day.**

"Muggles." Voldemort snorted.

**But on the edge of town, drills were driven out of his mind by something else. As he sat in the usual morning traffic jam, he couldn't help noticing that there seemed to be a lot of strangely dressed people about. People in cloaks. Mr. Dursley couldn't bear people who dressed in funny clothes -- the getups you saw on young people! He supposed this was some stupid new fashion. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and his eyes fell on a huddle of these weirdos standing quite close by. They were whispering excitedly together. Mr. Dursley was enraged to see that a couple of them weren't young at all; why, that man had to be older than he was, and wearing an emerald-green cloak!**

"Excuse me." A person from the Ravenclaw table raised their hand. 

"Yes, Ravenclaw Prefect." Harry said, pointing. "What's the question?" 

"How are people in cloaks strangely dressed?" 

"Muggles haven't worn cloaks since the early 1900's." Harry explained. 

"Oh, thanks." The Ravenclaw said, and sat down. 

**The nerve of him! But then it struck Mr. Dursley that this was probably some silly stunt -- these people were obviously collecting for something... yes, that would be it. The traffic moved on and a few minutes later, Mr. Dursley arrived in the Grunnings parking lot, his mind back on drills.**

"Wow, a one tracked mind that one." Someone in Azkaban robes said making several people chuckle or giggle.

"Rodolphus." An old man hissed at the man who'd spoke. 

"Don't scold him." Harry said, boredly "We were all thinking it. Some might as well say it." 

Sirius laughed and rubbed his hand into his godson's head.

**Mr. Dursley always sat with his back to the window in his office on the ninth floor. If he hadn't, he might have found it harder to concentrate on drills that morning. He didn't see the owls swooping past in broad daylight, though people down in the street did; they pointed and gazed open-mouthed as owl after owl sped overhead. Most of them had never seen an owl even at nighttime.**

Hands shot into the air. 

"Susan Bones." Harry called, pointing to the Hufflepuff table. 

Susan stood up. 

"Never seen an owl?" She asked. 

"Owls normally avoid muggle areas do to the power lines that give muggles electricty. " Harry found himself explaining. "Do to their wide wing spand they can touch two of the lines at once which causes them to become electrocuted......think of burned bird......" he got 'ewwwwww' s. So most people who don't live near woods or the forests have never seen an owl before." 

"Oh, okay, thank you , Harry." 

With that Susan sat down. 

Hermione was shocked that Harry had explained that so well. 

**Mr. Dursley, however, had a perfectly normal, owl-free morning. He yelled at five different people. He made several important telephone calls and shouted a bit more.**

"Mr. Malfoy." Harry said, not looking up from his Potions Book. "Go ahead." 

Lucius Malfoy frowned at the boy. He hadn't even raised his hand. 

"That is not the proper way to conduct buisness. You must not be very good at your job." 

Vernon sputtered.

**He was in a very good mood until lunchtime, when he thought he'd stretch his legs**

"Bull shit!" Harry said, looking up. "Look at him."

"Harry!" Dumbledore scolded before Molly could. "Watch your tongue." 

"Let me finish, Harry." Voldemort said. 

**and walk across the road to buy himself a bun from the bakery.**

"Yep, that makes more sense." Harry nodded, and returned to his Potions Book. 

**He'd forgotten all about the people in cloaks until he passed a group of them next to the baker's. He eyed them angrily as he passed. He didn't know why, but they made him uneasy. This bunch were whispering excitedly, too, and he couldn't see a single collecting tin. It was on his way back past them, clutching a large doughnut in a bag, that he caught a few words of what they were saying.**

Everyone leaned forward. 

**"The Potters, that's right, that's what I heard--""-- yes, their son, Harry--"  
Mr. Dursley stopped dead. Fear flooded him. He looked back at the whisperers as if he wanted to say something to them, but thought better of it.**

"Smartest thing you've ever done." Harry said.

"Shut up, Boy!" Vernon snapped. 

"Dobby!" Harry called. Vernon yelped loudly. "Thank you, Dobby." 

Several people were trying to hold in laughs even the aurors.

**He dashed back across the road, hurried up to his office, snapped at his secretary not to disturb him, seized his telephone, and had almost finished dialing his home number when he changed his mind.**

"YOU! YOU!" Petunia screamed. "YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME!" 

"I didn't want to worry you, Pet." Vernon tried. 

"Oh, shut up!" Severus snapped. "Dobby!" 

Nothing happened. 

"He only works for me." Harry said, giving Snape a sweet smile. "I don't get this here." 

He pointed to something in his book.

Severus growled but looked at what Potter was having issues with. 

**He put the receiver back down and stroked his mustache, thinking... no, he was being stupid. Potter wasn't such an unusual name. He was sure there were lots of people called Potter who had a son called Harry. Come to think of it, he wasn't even sure his nephew was called Harry.**

"Hermione, go ahead." 

"YOU DIDN'T EVEN KNOW HIS NAME?!" Hermione bellowed. "HE'S YOUR NEPHEW! EVEN IF YOU AREN'T CLOSE TO YOUR WIVES SISTER YOU STILL SHOULD HAVE KNOWN THE KIDS NAME! I BET YOU LILY EVANS KNEW YOUR SONS NAME! EVEN PUREBLOODS IN OUR WORLD KNOW THEIR REALITIVES NAMES EVEN IF THEY ARE DISOWNED!" 

"For example." Harry cut in. "Sirius can you name your cousins?" 

"Lets see......There's Andromeda Black Tonks she married a Muggleborn named Ted Tonks and was disowned from the family they had this one here." he jerked a thumb at Tonks. "Her name is Nymphadora Andromeda Tonks though she prefers to be called her surname, Then there is Bellatrix Black LeStrange, she married Rodolphus LeStrange a pureblood though it was a forced marriage and they hate each other so no kids. Both are in Azkaban. Then is Narcissa Black Malfoy she married Lucius Malfoy a pureblood and they have a son named Draco Lucius Malfoy. I think he's in your year isn't he?" 

"Unfortunatly." Harry drawled sounding like Snape. 

"My brother and parents are dead." Sirius said, "I could give you the entire Black family that is alive if you want but those are my closest family." 

"see?" 

"So what?" Vernon snapped. 

"So Harry's point is I was cast out and disowned by my family as a Blood-Traitor. I had no contact with them after I turned 16." Sirius explained. "and yet but even though I had no contact I still kept tabs on them."

"Exactly." Harry said, nodding.

The Dursley's were now getting glared at and dirty looks. Sirius was getting surprsied looks from the Black FAmily that was in the room and there were more than Sirius had said as most of the Magical Community of the U.K. were in the Hall. 

**He'd never even seen the boy. It might have been Harvey. Or Harold.**

Harry wrinkled his nose. 

"His name is Harry James Potter II!" Sirius snapped. "He was named after his Great-Grandfather Henry Potter!" 

"I was?" Harry asked. 

"Oh, did we not tell you that?" Sirius asked blushing. "Okay, well, We'll talk about that later then." 

Harry nodded. 

**There was no point in worrying Mrs. Dursley; she always got so upset at any mention of her sister. He didn't blame her -- if he'd had a sister like that... but all the same, those people in cloaks...**

"One track mind." Rodolphus repeated.

**He found it a lot harder to concentrate on drills that afternoon and when he left the building at five o'clock, he was still so worried that he walked straight into someone just outside the door.  
"Sorry," he grunted, as the tiny old man stumbled and almost fell. **

"Tom, did you read that right?" Harry asked looking up from where Snape was actually trying to help him. "My uncle apologized to someone?"

"I HAVE MANNERS!" Vernon bellowed. 

"Never seen it." Harry muttered. 

"I read it correctly I assure you, Harry." Voldemort said, almost snorting with laughter. "Focus on your Potions."

"Trying." Harry whined. "I don't get it."

**It was a few seconds before Mr. Dursley realized that the man was wearing a violet cloak. He didn't seem at all upset at being almost knocked to the ground. On the contrary, his face split into a wide smile and he said in a squeaky voice that made passersby stare,**

"Do the voice!" Harry cheered. He shoved Snape off the couch as a spell hit right where they'd been sitting. Sirius had been moved by Remus. "Okay, okay, you don't have to do the voice!" 

"Get off of me, Potter!" 

Harry was left pouting back on the couch. 

**"Don't be sorry, my dear sir, for nothing could upset me today! Rejoice, for You-Know-Who has gone at last! Even Muggles like yourself should be celebrating, this happy, happy day!"**

"What happy happy day?" Voldemort frowned. 

"You haven't figured it out yet?" Harry asked. "Geesh I figured it out already." 

"What are you going on about?" Voldemort demanded. 

"Harry, your doing that thing again where your brain jumps to the answer while the rest of us are figuring it out." Hermione called. 

"Owls flying by day, McGonagall sitting outside the Dursley's, people in cloaks all over flaunting the Statue, a whisper about my parents and me." Harry said, ticking the points off on his fingers. "This is November 1st. The day after Tom was "defeated" ." 

He got shocked looks and gasps then people agreeing with what he said. 

"Put that quick brain to work on your homework!" Snape snapped. 

"I don't understand it!" Harry whined. 

**And the old man hugged Mr. Dursley around the middle and walked off.  
Mr. Dursley stood rooted to the spot. He had been hugged by a complete stranger. He also thought he had been called a Muggle, whatever that was. He was rattled. He hurried to his car and set off for home, hoping he was imagining things, which he had never hoped before, because he didn't approve of imagination.**

"Dont' approve of......" Tonks wrinkled her nose and glared at the Muggles. "I don't believe you people." 

Hermione agreed. 

**As he pulled into the driveway of number four, the first thing he saw -- and it didn't improve his mood -- was the tabby cat he'd spotted that morning. It was now sitting on his garden wall. He was sure it was the same one; it had the same markings around its eyes.  
"Shoo!" said Mr. Dursley loudly.**

"That's not going to work on Minnie." Sirius laughed. 

"Do not call me that, Mr. Black." Minerva McGonagall snapped. 

**The cat didn't move. It just gave him a stern look. Was this normal cat behavior? Mr. Dursley wondered. Trying to pull himself together, he let himself into the house. He was still determined not to mention anything to his wife.  
Mrs. Dursley had had a nice, normal day. She told him over dinner all about Mrs. Next Door's problems with her daughter and how Dudley had learned a new word ("Won't!"). Mr. Dursley tried to act normally. When Dudley had been put to bed, he went into the living room in time to catch the last report on the evening news:**

Molly pursed her lips.

**"And finally, bird-watchers everywhere have reported that the nation's owls have been behaving very unusually today. Although owls normally hunt at night and are hardly ever seen in daylight, there have been hundreds of sightings of these birds flying in every direction since sunrise. Experts are unable to explain why the owls have suddenly changed their sleeping pattern." The newscaster allowed himself a grin. "Most mysterious. And now, over to Jim McGuffin with the weather. Going to be any more showers of owls tonight, Jim?"**

**"Well, Ted," said the weatherman, "I don't know about that, but it's not only the owls that have been acting oddly today. Viewers as far apart as Kent, Yorkshire, and Dundee have been phoning in to tell me that instead of the rain I promised yesterday, they've had a downpour of shooting stars! Perhaps people have been celebrating Bonfire Night early -- it's not until next week, folks! But I can promise a wet night tonight."**

"Oh, right." Ted Tonks said, "I remember that news cast."

"You, daddy?" Tonks asked, wishing she could take the bet back. 

"Yes, I was a muggle news caster for a year or two back then." Ted Tonks said. "Mr. Potter is right about what day this is." 

**Mr. Dursley sat frozen in his armchair. Shooting stars all over Britain? Owls flying by daylight? Mysterious people in cloaks all over the place? And a whisper, a whisper about the Potters...**

**Mrs. Dursley came into the living room carrying two cups of tea. It was no good. He'd have to say something to her. He cleared his throat nervously. "Er -- Petunia, dear -- you haven't heard from your sister lately, have you?"**

**As he had expected, Mrs. Dursley looked shocked and angry. After all, they normally pretended she didn't have a sister.**

"You know even after everything you said and did to Lily she never once acted like she never had a sister." Remus said, growling. Tonks was up and her wand pointed as his eyes went amber. "She always hoped that the two of you could make up." 

He was suddenly hit with a rolling pin. 

"Why does that keep happening?" Remus asked shaking his head and taking calming breaths. When he opened his eyes and they were normal again. Tonks relaxed back on the couch arm. 

"It's probably Dobby." Harry said, "He's probably trying to ensure you don't lose control." 

"Ah." Remus said, nodding. 

Narcissa glanced over at Andromeda sitting across from her at the Slytherin table. She than glanced at Bellatrix who was sitting next to her. Bellatrix seemed to be thinking hard. 

**"No," she said sharply. "Why?"**

**"Funny stuff on the news," Mr. Dursley mumbled. "Owls... shooting stars... and there were a lot of funny-looking people in town today..."**

**"So?" snapped Mrs. Dursley.**

**"Well, I just thought... maybe... it was something to do with... you know... her crowd."**

**Mrs. Dursley sipped her tea through pursed lips. Mr. Dursley wondered whether he dared tell her he'd heard the name "Potter." He decided he didn't dare. Instead he said, as casually as he could, "Their son -- he'd be about Dudley's age now, wouldn't he?"**

"Draco Malfoy." Harry said once again not looking up from his work. 

"Coward." Draco stated, then hissed when he got his father's cane to his head. "What? Potter told me to say it, father. I had the okay to insult his muggle uncle." 

Lucius sighed to himself he couldn't argue with that he supposed.

**"I suppose so," said Mrs. Dursley stiffly.**

**"What's his name again? Howard, isn't it?"**

**"Harry. Nasty, common name, if you ask me."**

**"Oh, yes," said Mr. Dursley, his heart sinking horribly. "Yes, I quite agree."**

Harry stood and conducted the room. 

"NO ONE ASKED YOU!" 

It mostly came from the Gryffindor table. 

With that Harry sat back down to stiffled laughs and went back to his work.

**He didn't say another word on the subject as they went upstairs to bed. While Mrs. Dursley was in the bathroom, Mr. Dursley crept to the bedroom window and peered down into the front garden. The cat was still there. It was staring down Privet Drive as though it were waiting for something.**

**Was he imagining things? Could all this have anything to do with the Potters? If it did... if it got out that they were related to a pair of -- well, he didn't think he could bear it.**

"Dobby, if you would to make everyone happy." Harry sighed. 

All three Dursley's yelped several times. 

"Thank you, Dobby." Most of the room chorused. 

**The Dursleys got into bed. Mrs. Dursley fell asleep quickly but Mr. Dursley lay awake, turning it all over in his mind. His last, comforting thought before he fell asleep was that even if the Potters were involved, there was no reason for them to come near him and Mrs. Dursley. The Potters knew very well what he and Petunia thought about them and their kind... He couldn't see how he and Petunia could get mixed up in anything that might be going on -- he yawned and turned over -- it couldn't affect them...  
How very wrong he was.**

"Wish he wasn't." Harry muttered but everyone heard him. "Like that?" 

"You and me both, boy!" Vernon snapped then yelped again.

Damn that Dobby whomever it was.

**Mr. Dursley might have been drifting into an uneasy sleep, but the cat on the wall outside was showing no sign of sleepiness. It was sitting as still as a statue, its eyes fixed unblinkingly on the far corner of Privet Drive. It didn't so much as quiver when a car door slammed on the next street, nor when two owls swooped overhead. In fact, it was nearly midnight before the cat moved at all.**

**A man appeared on the corner the cat had been watching, appeared so suddenly and silently you'd have thought he'd just popped out of the ground. The cat's tail twitched and its eyes narrowed.**

**Nothing like this man had ever been seen on Privet Drive. He was tall, thin, and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt. He was wearing long robes, a purple cloak that swept the ground, and high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes were light, bright, and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles and his nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice. This man's name was Albus Dumbledore.**

"You should try to keep the hatred out of your voice when reading." Harry said. 

"Will you focus, Potter?" Snape snapped, smacking the boy on the back of the head. 

"Headmaster!" 

"Severus, stop hitting Harry." Dumbledore repeated like this was a normal thing. He was still sucking on Lemon Drops. 

**Albus Dumbledore didn't seem to realize that he had just arrived in a street where everything from his name to his boots was unwelcome. He was busy rummaging in his cloak, looking for something. But he did seem to realize he was being watched, because he looked up suddenly at the cat, which was still staring at him from the other end of the street. For some reason, the sight of the cat seemed to amuse him. He chuckled and muttered, "I should have known."**

**He found what he was looking for in his inside pocket. It seemed to be a silver cigarette lighter. He flicked it open, held it up in the air, and clicked it. The nearest street lamp went out with a little pop. He clicked it again -- the next lamp flickered into darkness. Twelve times he clicked the Put-Outer, until the only lights left on the whole street were two tiny pinpricks in the distance, which were the eyes of the cat watching him. If anyone looked out of their window now, even beady-eyed Mrs. Dursley, they wouldn't be able to see anything that was happening down on the pavement. Dumbledore slipped the Put-Outer back inside his cloak and set off down the street toward number four, where he sat down on the wall next to the cat. He didn't look at it, but after a moment he spoke to it.**

"It's actually called a De-Illuminator." Dumbledore corrected the book. 

Voldemort held in his comments.

**"Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall."**

"HA!" Sirius crowed. "Knew it was Minnie." 

Tonks moaned as her cousin took the Galleons.

"Never bet against Sirius." Remus chuckled.

**He turned to smile at the tabby, but it had gone. Instead he was smiling at a rather severe-looking woman who was wearing square glasses exactly the shape of the markings the cat had had around its eyes. She, too, was wearing a cloak, an emerald one. Her black hair was drawn into a tight bun. She looked distinctly ruffled.  
"How did you know it was me?" she asked.**

**"My dear Professor, I've never seen a cat sit so stiffly."**

**"You'd be stiff if you'd been sitting on a brick wall all day," said Professor McGonagall.**

**"All day? When you could have been celebrating? I must have passed a dozen feasts and parties on my way here."**

**Professor McGonagall sniffed angrily.**

**"Oh yes, I've celebrating, all right," she said impatiently. "You'd think they'd be a bit more careful, but no -- even the Muggles have noticed something's going on. It was on their news." She jerked her head back at the Dursleys' dark living-room window. "I heard it. Flocks of owls... shooting stars... Well, they're not completely stupid. They were bound to notice something. Shooting stars down in Kent -- I'll bet that was Dedalus Diggle. He never had much sense."**

"HEY!" A man from the Hufflepuff table cried.

"Mr. Potter is right about the day then." Cornilus muttered to Dorlorus whom he thought was looking way too excited about this. 

**"You can't blame them," said Dumbledore gently. "We've had precious little to celebrate for eleven years."**

**"I know that," said Professor McGonagall irritably. "But that's no reason to lose our heads. People are being downright careless, out on the streets in broad daylight, not even dressed in Muggle clothes, swapping rumors."**

**She threw a sharp, sideways glance at Dumbledore here, as though hoping he was going to tell her something, but he didn't, so she went on. "A fine thing it would be if, on the very day You-Know-Who seems to have disappeared at last, the Muggles found out about us all. I suppose he really has gone, Dumbledore?"**

**"It certainly seems so," said Dumbledore. "We have much to be thankful for. Would you care for a lemon drop?"  
"A what?"**

**"A lemon drop. They're a kind of Muggle sweet I'm rather fond of."**

**"No, thank you," said Professor McGonagall coldly, as though she didn't think this was the moment for lemon drops. "As I say, even if You-Know-Who has gone--"**

**"My dear Professor, surely a sensible person like yourself can call him by his name?**

"Voldemort isn't his real name." Harry said, absently. "Tom Marvolo Riddle is his real name. "

Snape was annoyed as Potter once again forced him to the floor in an attempt to dodge a hex sent his way. 

"You're annoying me, Harry." Voldemort informed.

"Indeed it is, Harry, my boy." Dumbledore agreed. "But until now there are not many people knew that." 

and he would have rather kept it that way. 

**All this 'You-Know-Who' nonsense -- for eleven years I have been trying to persuade people to call him by his proper name: Voldemort." Professor McGonagall flinched, but Dumbledore, who was unsticking two lemon drops, seemed not to notice. "It all gets so confusing if we keep saying 'You-Know-Who.' I have never seen any reason to be frightened of saying Voldemort's name."**

**"I know you haven't, said Professor McGonagall, sounding half exasperated, half admiring. "But you're different. Everyone knows you're the only one You-Know- oh, all right, Voldemort, was frightened of."**

**"You flatter me," said Dumbledore calmly. "Voldemort had powers I will never have."**

**"Only because you're too -- well -- noble to use them."**

**"It's lucky it's dark. I haven't blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she liked my new earmuffs."**

**Professor McGonagall shot a sharp look at Dumbledore and said "The owls are nothing next to the rumors that are flying around. You know what they're saying? About why he's disappeared? About what finally stopped him?"**

**It seemed that Professor McGonagall had reached the point she was most anxious to discuss, the real reason she had been waiting on a cold, hard wall all day, for neither as a cat nor as a woman had she fixed Dumbledore with such a piercing stare as she did now. It was plain that whatever "everyone" was saying, she was not going to believe it until Dumbledore told her it was true. Dumbledore, however, was choosing another lemon drop and did not answer.**

**"What they're saying," she pressed on, "is that last night Voldemort turned up in Godric's Hollow. He went to find the Potters. The rumor is that Lily and James Potter are -- are -- that they're -- dead."**

**Dumbledore bowed his head. Professor McGonagall gasped.**

**Lily and James... I can't believe it... I didn't want to believe it... Oh, Albus..."**

**Dumbledore reached out and patted her on the shoulder. "I know... I know... " he said heavily.**

**Professor McGonagall's voice trembled as she went on. "That's not all. They're saying he tried to kill the Potter's son, Harry. But he couldn't. He couldn't kill that little boy. No one knows why, or how, but they're saying that when he couldn't kill Harry Potter, Voldemort's power somehow broke -- and that's why he's gone."  
Dumbledore nodded glumly.**

**"It's -- it's true ?" faltered Professor McGonagall. "After all he's done... all the people he's killed... he couldn't kill a little boy? It's just astounding... of all the things to stop him... but how in the name of heaven did Harry survive?"**

**"We can only guess," said Dumbledore. "We may never know."**

"I would like to know myself." Voldemort growled at the book. 

"Tom." Harry sing-songed. "I bet you twenty galleons that the Headmaster already has a theory about that and will figure it out by the end of the books." 

"Very well, Harry." Voldemort said, absently. "Severus will hold the money." 

"Agreed." 

Severus was annoyed but took the money from both of them.

Dumbledore frowned at Harry how could he know that he had already figured it out?

**Professor McGonagall pulled out a lace handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes beneath her spectacles. Dumbledore gave a great sniff as he took a golden watch from his pocket and examined it. It was a very odd watch. It had twelve hands but no numbers; instead, little planets were moving around the edge. It must have made sense to Dumbledore, though, because he put it back in his pocket and said, "Hagrid's late. I suppose it was he who told you I'd be here, by the way?"**

**"Yes," said Professor McGonagall. "And I don't suppose you're going to tell me why you're here, of all places?"**

**"I've come to bring Harry to his aunt and uncle. They're the only family he has left now."**

"Anyone want to jump in on that one?" Harry asked. "How about this?" 

"Better." Severus said, grudingly. 

"That isn't true!" Sirius spat standing up. "True I was stupid and rushed off and did something stupid leaving him behind but Andromeda and Narcissa are Harry's fourth cousins! They could have taken him in! " 

"For the record I did try." Narcissa said, standing. "I was blocked at every turn." 

"I'm sorry what?" Harry asked, looking up. "Did I just hear that I am Draco Malfoy's fifth cousin and could have ended up being his brother?" 

Severus smacked the idiot upside the head. 

"Headmaster!" 

"Severus, stop hitting Harry." 

"I also tried to get custody of Mr. Potter and was blocked. " Andromeda stated standing up. "Odd that isn't it, Cissy? The two people who wanted custody of Potter and who were related to him got blocked?" 

"Yes, I do agree, Andy......" 

"It because you're Blacks!" Bellatrix burst out standing up as well. "They stopped you because you're Blacks and didn't want any Black taking in the ickle bitty baby Savior......"

"Can I hex her?" Harry asked. 

"You could try but she's one of my most faithful." Voldemort informed, "She'll have her sister's wand and have you screaming in pain in seconds." 

Harry huffed blowing his bangs.

"Oh, I agree, Bella." Andy said, patting her middle sister's hand. 

"Yes, as do I." Cissy said, smiling at her middle sister. "Very good."

"I do not remember seeing any of these requests!" A Ministry member said, standing up. "I'm Evaline Greengrass I was and am the Head of the Department of Child Welfare during that time and now. I have no memory of these requests ever coming across my desk and they would have considering who was involved!" 

"How's this?" Harry asked. 

"No, you missed this and this and that." Severus sighed.

Harry nodded and frowned hard. 

The argument went on and on because Voldemort seemed to think this was amusing. Finally, though he yelled for silence and continued to read.

**"You don't mean - you can't mean the people who live here ?" cried Professor McGonagall, jumping to her feet and pointing at number four. "Dumbledore -- you can't. I've been watching them all day. You couldn't find two people who are less like us. And they've got this son -- I saw him kicking his mother all the way up the street, screaming for sweets. Harry Potter come and live here!"**

"What deplorable behavior!" Molly raged. "I would never let my children act like that!" 

**"It's the best place for him," said Dumbledore firmly. "His aunt and uncle will be able to explain everything to him when he's older. I've written them a letter."**

Harry stood and conducted the Hall again. 

"A LETTER?!" 

He sat back down and continued his tutoring. 

"Not a very informitive letter either!" Petunia called, trying to fan the flame. "Just that my sister and her husband was dead, that the boy was my nephew Harry, that he was like them, and that he had to stay with us because of some protections. Oh, and that all of you would leave us alone. It was annoyingly short!"

Petunia was shocked when her nephew tossed her a small smile. She hadn't seen him smile since he was five.

Voldemort enjoyed everyone ragging at Dumbledore. 

**"A letter?" repeated Professor McGonagall faintly, sitting back down on the wall. "Really, Dumbledore, you think you can explain all this in a letter? These people will never understand him! He'll be famous -- a legend -- I wouldn't be surprised if today was known as Harry Potter day in the future -- there will be books written about Harry -- every child in our world will know his name!"**

"Thank Merlin that day isn't known as Harry Potter Day." Harry said, "Who can I contact to go about sueing the people who wrote these books about me? and Rita Skeeter for fourth year? "

"I'll take your case, Mr. Potter." Lucius Malfoy said, before anyone else could. 

"Very well you're hired. " 

"HARRY!" Hermione scolded. 

"A great idea, puppy." Sirius beamed praising. 

"Don't encourage him!" Hermione bellowed. 

Dumbledore agreed. 

"We'll talk during the break." Harry said, "How's that?" 

"P." 

Harry let out an annoyed growl.

**"Exactly." said Dumbledore, looking very seriously over the top of his half-moon glasses. "It would be enough to turn any boy's head. Famous before he can walk and talk! Famous for something he won't even remember! Can you see how much better off he'll be, growing up away from all that until he's ready to take it?"**

**Professor McGonagall opened her mouth, changed her mind, swallowed, and then said, "Yes -- yes, you're right, of course. But how is the boy getting here, Dumbledore?" She eyed his cloak suddenly as though she thought he might be hiding Harry underneath it.**

**"Hagrid's bringing him."**

**"You think it -- wise -- to trust Hagrid with something as important as this?"**

**"I would trust Hagrid with my life," said Dumbledore.**

"Here! HEre!" Harry called. "With my life just not my secrets." 

Hagrid blushed and blew his nose into his hanky tears running down his face. He laughed at the last though. 

**"I'm not saying his heart isn't in the right place," said Professor McGonagall grudgingly, "but you can't pretend he's not careless. He does tend to -- what was that?"**

**A low rumbling sound had broken the silence around them. It grew steadily louder as they looked up and down the street for some sign of a headlight; it swelled to a roar as they both looked up at the sky -- and a huge motorcycle fell out of the air and landed on the road in front of them.**

**If the motorcycle was huge, it was nothing to the man sitting astride it. He was almost twice as tall as a normal man and at least five times as wide. He looked simply too big to be allowed, and so wild -- long tangles of bushy black hair and beard hid most of his face, he had hands the size of trash can lids, and his feet in their leather boots were like baby dolphins. In his vast, muscular arms he was holding a bundle of blankets.**

"Hey, Hagrid, where is my bike?" Sirius called. 

"Got it shrunk in me hut." Hagrid informed. "You can have it back." 

"Sirius, will you take me on a ride?" Harry asked. 

"Sure." Sirius said, "But you'll need a proper helmet and you'll be charmed not to fall off." 

That seemed to be enough to calm the females in the room. 

Severus was shocked that Black had thought to take procautions to protect Potter. 

**"Hagrid," said Dumbledore, sounding relieved. "At last. And where did you get that motorcycle?"**

**"Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, sir," said the giant, climbing carefully off the motorcycle as he spoke. "Young Sirius Black lent it to me. I've got him, sir."**

**"No problems, were there?"**

**"No, sir -- house was almost destroyed, but I got him out all right before the Muggles started swarmin' around. He fell asleep as we was flyin' over Bristol."**

**Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall bent forward over the bundle of blankets. Inside, just visible, was a baby boy, fast asleep. Under a tuft of jet-black hair over his forehead they could see a curiously shaped cut, like a bolt of lightning.**

**"Is that where -- ?" whispered Professor McGonagall.**

**"Yes," said Dumbledore. "He'll have that scar forever."**

**"Couldn't you do something about it, Dumbledore?"**

**"Even if I could, I wouldn't. Scars can come in handy. I have one myself above my left knee that is a perfect map of the London Underground. Well -- give him here, Hagrid -- we'd better get this over with."**

" "Get this over with?" Gee thanks, Headmater." Harry said, dryly. "You know now that I think about it maybe the Goblins will have something to get rid of this stupid scar of mine." 

"You can ask." Sirius said, frowning in thought. "Sorry, my brains still a little muddled I can't think." 

Dumbledore didn't like the glares he was getting and he knew it was going to get worse.

**Dumbledore took Harry in his arms and turned toward the Dursleys' house.**

**"Could I -- could I say good-bye to him, sir?" asked Hagrid. He bent his great, shaggy head over Harry and gave him what must have been a very scratchy, whiskery kiss. Then, suddenly, Hagrid let out a howl like a wounded dog.**

**"Shhh!" hissed Professor McGonagall, "You'll wake the Muggles!"**

**"S-s-sorry," sobbed Hagrid, taking out a large, spotted handkerchief and burying his face in it. "But I c-c-can't stand it -- Lily an' James dead -- an' poor little Harry off ter live with Muggles--"**

**"Yes, yes, it's all very sad, but get a grip on yourself, Hagrid, or we'll be found," Professor McGonagall whispered, patting Hagrid gingerly on the arm as Dumbledore stepped over the low garden wall and walked to the front door. He laid Harry gently on the doorstep, took a letter out of his cloak, tucked it inside Harry's blankets, and then came back to the other two. For a full minute the three of them stood and looked at the little bundle; Hagrid's shoulders shook, Professor McGonagall blinked furiously, and the twinkling light that usually shone from Dumbledore's eyes seemed to have gone out.**

**"Well," said Dumbledore finally, "that's that. We've no business staying here. We may as well go and join the celebrations."**

**"Yeah," said Hagrid in a very muffled voice, "I'll be takin' Sirius his bike back. G'night, Professor McGonagall -- Professor Dumbledore, sir."**

**Wiping his streaming eyes on his jacket sleeve, Hagrid swung himself onto the motorcycle and kicked the engine into life; with a roar it rose into the air and off into the night.  
"I shall see you soon, I expect, Professor McGonagall," said Dumbledore, nodding to her. Professor McGonagall blew her nose in reply.**

**Dumbledore turned and walked back down the street. On the corner he stopped and took out the silver Put-Outer. He clicked it once, and twelve balls of light sped back to their street lamps so that Privet Drive glowed suddenly orange and he could make out a tabby cat slinking around the corner at the other end of the street. He could just see the bundle of blankets on the step of number four.**

**"Good luck, Harry," he murmured. He turned on his heel and with a swish of his cloak, he was gone.**

Harry covered his ears. 

"YOU LEFT HIM ON THE DOORSTEP?!" 

Woman, mostly mothers , raged. 

Voldemort glanced at his sworn enemy with a frown but then just sat and listened happily to eveyone yelling at Dumbledore. This was going well better than his current plans at any rate. 

"The Blood wards were there to protect him." Dumbledore stated. 

"The wards that no one's ever checked on?" Harry asked. 

"I assure you I've checked on them and they are fully functional...." Dumbledore stated. 

"Really? Because didn't Aunt Petunia just finish saying that you promised that none of you would ever bother us?" Harry continued. "Aunt Petunia in what context did the letter state this?" 

Petunia frowned thinking hard. 

"It was something along the lines of "No magical being will ever bother you or come around you and your family. Our world will have no contact with you and your family."....." 

"So unless you broke this promise, Headmaster you've never once checked these wards and have never allowed anyone else check the wards either." 

Voldemort was really enjoying watching Dumbledore floundering as everyone raged at him. Finally, he decided to try and finish the chapter.

**A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours' time by Mrs. Dursley's scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley... He couldn't know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: "To Harry Potter -- the boy who lived!" ******

"And that......" Harry said. "Who came up with that dumb ass name?! I didn't live I survived! and how am I famous for that? I was 15 fucking months old I didn't do shit! Whatever happened that was on my mum and dad! And how does anyone really know what happened in that house anyway? I was too young to remember, my parents are dead and Tom was a wraith almost too weak to carry on. So where did this dumb ass story come from in the first place?" 

No one had an answer for him. 

****"That is the end of Chapter 1." Voldemort stated.** **


	2. Speakers of Snakes

During th eBrak Harry did talk to Lucius Malfoy and they made a list of what Harry wanted to do before Harry went up to the podium and everyone fell silent. 

"Okay, I think we're ready to start chapter 2." Harry called. "Everyone back to your seats please." He frowned. "NO!" everyone froze. "I changed my mind! I want to see some House Unity sit wherever the hell you want and I better see more than just Slytherin's at that table and they better go to the others. "

Everyone froze but then quickly did as told. Though Gryffindor remained Slytherin free. Though Harry was happy that there were Slythrins at all the other tables and the other Houses were at the Slytherin table which was Gryffindor free. 

"I guess this is the best I can hope for." Harry said, rubbing the back of his head. "Okay, Tom's a Slytherin so lets choose a different house." Hermione waved her hand in the air. "Hmmm." she waved it frantically. "Uh.......how about ......." Hermione was standing now and waving her hand. "Cho Chang from Ravenclaw!" 

Cho blushed from the Hufflepuff table and quickly went to the podium. Harry gave her the book and went back to be tortured by doing his homework. 

"O-Okay." Cho said. "Um....Chapter 2 The Vanishing Glass. ........Hmmm........that sounds interesting."

**Nearly ten years had passed since the Dursleys had woken up to find their nephew on the front step, but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all. The sun rose on the same tidy front gardens and lit up the brass number four on the Dursleys' front door; it crept into their living room, which was almost exactly the same as it had been on the night when Mr. Dursley had seen that fateful news report about the owls. Only the photographs on the mantelpiece really showed how much time had passed. Ten years ago, there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large pink beach ball wearing different-colored bonnets -- but Dudley Dursley was no longer a baby, and now the photographs showed a large blond boy riding his first bicycle, on a carousel at the fair, playing a computer game with his father, being hugged and kissed by his mother.**

A hand went up. 

"Er.....yes, little Greengrass.......I'm sorry I don't know your name." Cho said. 

"Astoria." the third year said. 

"Beautiful name." Cho told her. "You have a question?" 

"For the Muggles." Astoria said, "Where are the pictures of Potter?" 

"The next line will answer that." Cho said. 

Astoria nodded. 

**The room held no sign at all that another boy lived in the house, too.**

"Sirius." Harry said. 

"NO SIGN AT ALL?!" Sirius bellowed. "THERE'S NOT EVEN A SINGLE ADORABLE BABY PICTURE OF MY GODSON DOING HIS MAGIC OR HIS FIRST DAY AT MUGGLE SCHOOL OR ANYTHING?"

"No." Petunia said, rather softly. 

"There's school pictures." Dudley rushed trying to bail his mother out. "Our school took one each year. Harry's in them you can make some copies of those....and there is the year books. You can have those......though Harry wasn't in them much......." 

"Nice try, Dud but shut it." Harry sighed. 

"K." Dudley nodded.

"Cho, if you would. " 

"Uh.......what's a year book?" Cho asked. 

"Muggle schools take pictures of their students in every year and put them in a book they also take pictures of the kids doing clubs and school activities." Dudley quickly explained. "The teachers are in there too. At the end of each year the students go around and try to get other students to write their names and little messages in the books. I never really understood why though." 

"Sounds cool." Cho said. 

A lot of people agreed with her. 

**Yet Harry Potter was still there, asleep at the moment, but not for long. His Aunt Petunia was awake and it was her shrill voice that made the first noise of the day.**

"No, not the first voice of the day." Harry moaned dramatically.

"I do not have a shrill voice!" Petunia snapped. 

"Your voice could wake the dead." Severus deadpanned, earning stiffled laughs and coughs.

**"Up! Get up! Now!"**

**Harry woke with a start. His aunt rapped on the door again.**

**"Up!" she screeched. Harry heard her walking toward the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the stove. He rolled onto his back and tried to remember the dream he had been having. It had been a good one. There had been a flying motorcycle in it. He had a funny feeling he'd had the same dream before.**

**His aunt was back outside the door.**

**"Are you up yet?" she demanded.**

**"Nearly," said Harry.**

**"Well, get a move on, I want you to look after the bacon. And don't you dare let it burn, I want everything perfect on Duddy's birthday."**

**Harry groaned.**

**"What did you say?" his aunt snapped through the door.**

**"Nothing, nothing..."**

Cho frowned as she looked up at the waving hand. 

"Hermione Granger?" 

"They had you cook?!" Hermione demanded. 

"Yeah." Harry said, dismissivly. "I'm really good at it if I do say so myself. I like cooking......" 

"Really?" Severus asked. "Okay, then lets look at this like it's a stew recipe." 

Harry perked up at that.

"HEY!" Hermione asked, "I have questions!" 

"He obviously doesn't care." Cho said, "Anyone else?" 

Heads were shook no.

**Dudley's birthday -- how could he have forgotten? Harry got slowly out of bed and started looking for socks. He found a pair under his bed and, after pulling a spider off one of them, put them on. Harry was used to spiders,**

Cho sighed. 

"Ron Weasley?" 

"Used to spiders? How can you be used to spiders? Though it does explain some things from second year......" Ron rambled. 

"If you'd allow me to get to the end of the sentance I think it will be explained. " Cho said, and chewed her lip. "Oh, they aren't going to like this......"

**because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where he slept.**

Harry and Cho covered their ears but the noise didn't come they all watched a note appear in front of Cho. 

"It says _'So we don't make everyone deaf only the ones chosen by Harry or the Reader can explode and start screaming and yelling.' " Cho read, she looked up. "You choose first."_

"Two each." Harry said, "Sirius, you want to say anything?" 

"I'm going to live up to my family name and kill your muggles." Sirius said, in a dangerous voice. 

"YAY!" Bellatrix cheered. 

Her sisters pulled her down and tried to silence her. 

"Remus, anything to add?" 

"Sirius is going to have to get in line." Remus growled. He grunted as the rolling pin began smacking him repeatedly. 

"er......" Cho looked worried and scared. "Okay, my turn...." she looked around the room. "Uh.....Mrs. Weasley........?" 

"NO!" Harry cried and covered his ears again. 

"A CUPBOARD YOU LOCKED A DEFENSLESS CHILD IN A CUPBOARD?!" Molly bellowed making everyone cover their ears as she raged for twenty minutes. 

"SOMEONE PLEASE SILENCE HER!" Cho cried. 

Four Aurors decided to do just that and four spells hit Molly everything went silent. 

"Okay, don't call on her again." Cho muttered. She blinked at a raised hand. "I don't know if I should.........oh, well I already made one mistake.......Professor Snape?" 

"Potter, you are not a spoiled rotten little prince are you?" Severus asked. 

"No. Where'd you get that idea?" 

Severus spun on Dumbledore who paled. 

"A pampered little prince? He gets everything he could ever want? Treated the same as his cousin? Loved the same as his cousin? Raised like brothers?" Severus' voice had Remus and Sirius moving in a protective manor next to Harry. "That is what you told anyone who asked about Potter was it not? " 

"Errr.........well........" Dumbledore said, swallowing. 

Cho was hoping that she didn't have to choose people again because she was sure she'd just chosen two of the scariest people in the room. 

"Can we get back to the story?" Harry asked, pulling Snape back to the couch. "This is just the start. You'll get to be even angerier when you hear the rest. So sit down here and lets continue torturing me by making me do my homework? Cho, read!" 

**When he was dressed he went down the hall into the kitchen. The table was almost hidden beneath all Dudley's birthday presents. It looked as though Dudley had gotten the new computer he wanted, not to mention the second television and the racing bike. Exactly why Dudley wanted a racing bike was a mystery to Harry, as Dudley was very fat and hated exercise -- unless of course it involved punching somebody. Dudley's favorite punching bag was Harry,**

Cho glanced up but magic wasn't telling her that she needed to choose anyone so she decided it was safe to continue. 

**but he couldn't often catch him. Harry didn't look it, but he was very fast.**

**Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard, but Harry had always been small and skinny for his age. He looked even smaller and skinnier than he really was because all he had to wear were old clothes of Dudley's, and Dudley was about four times bigger than he was. Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair, and bright green eyes. He wore round glasses held together with a lot of Scotch tape because of all the times Dudley had punched him on the nose. The only thing Harry liked about his own appearance was a very thin scar on his forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning.**

"I didn't know anything about the stupid thing about it back then so shut the fuck up!" Harry yelled. 

Cho cleared her throat and watched Ron Weasley shut his mouth. 

**He had had it as long as he could remember, and the first question he could ever remember asking his Aunt Petunia was how he had gotten it.**

**"In the car crash when your parents died," she had said. "And don't ask questions."**

**Don't ask questions -- that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys.**

**Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen as Harry was turning over the bacon.**

**"Comb your hair!" he barked, by way of a morning greeting.**

"Er........" Cho said, then moaned, "Really? This is my choice? I don't want to call on either of them!" She got laughs. "Ugh, fine..........Hermione Granger......." 

"I'm sorry, Cho, but I could have sworn you just said that Harry wasn't allowed to ask questions." Hermione said. <

"Yes, that's exactly what I said........." Cho quickly covered her ears. 

"ARE YOU STUPID MUGGLES?!" Hermione screamed. "NO WONDER! THIS EXPLAINS EVERYTHING! LITERALLY EVERYTHING!" 

"I don't understand what she's saying so Professor Snape." 

"It explains everything literally everything." Snape muttered. 

"I don't get it!" Cho cried. 

Harry shrugged at her. 

**About once a week, Uncle Vernon looked over the top of his newspaper and shouted that Harry needed a haircut. Harry must have had more haircuts than the rest of the boys in his class put together, but it made no difference, his hair simply grew that way -- all over the place.**

"The Potter curse." Sirius said, arm around his godson. 

**Harry was frying eggs by the time Dudley arrived in the kitchen with his mother. Dudley looked a lot like Uncle Vernon. He had a large pink face, not much neck, small, watery blue eyes, and thick blond hair that lay smoothly on his thick, fat head. Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel -- Harry often said that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig.**

The hall broke out in laughter. 

"HEY!" Dudley bellowed. "TAKE THAT BACK!" 

"Oh, brother." Cho said, shaking her head. "Listen to this.........." 

**Harry put the plates of egg and bacon on the table, which was difficult as there wasn't much room. Dudley, meanwhile, was counting his presents. His face fell.**

**"Thirty-six," he said, looking up at his mother and father. "That's two less than last year."**

**"Darling, you haven't counted Auntie Marge's present, see, it's here under this big one from Mummy and Daddy."**

**"All right, thirty-seven then," said Dudley, going red in the face. Harry, who could see a huge Dudley tantrum coming on, began wolfing down his bacon as fast as possible in case Dudley turned the table over.**

**Aunt Petunia obviously scented danger, too, because she said quickly, "And we'll buy you another two presents while we're out today. How's that, popkin? Two more presents. Is that all right"**

**Dudley thought for a moment. It looked like hard work. Finally he said slowly, "So I'll have thirty... thirty..."**

**"Thirty-nine, sweetums," said Aunt Petunia.**

There was silence. 

"I'll take this one." Cho said, "Really, Harry's Aunt? Your kid can't count and instead of helping him out and teaching him, you just gave him the answer? What kind of parent does that?! Really?!" 

"You handled that very well, Miss. Chang." Someone said. 

Petunia was blushing and clearly furious. 

Harry was laughing this time. 

"Thank you, Cho." He finally wheezed. 

Cho blushed and went back the book. She spotted a hand. 

"Draco Malfoy." 

"I just want to say even with all my family and friends not even I get thirty-nine gifts on my birthday." Draco said. 

"Ron Weasley." 

"How spoiled can you get, Dursley?" Ron raged, "Not even Malfoy the most spoiled person in our world gets thirty-nine gifts on his birthday." 

Cho rolled her eyes but Weasley did have a point. How spoiled his this muggle cousin of Harry Potter. 

**"Oh." Dudley sat down heavily and grabbed the nearest parcel. "All right then."**

**Uncle Vernon chuckled.**

**"Little tyke wants his money's worth, just like his father. 'Atta boy, Dudley!" He ruffled Dudley's hair.**

"Oh for the love of Merlin!" Cho growled. "This just keeps getting worse!" 

"It gets even worse." Harry said, nodding his head, at their doubtful looks. "Oh, yes." 

**At that moment the telephone rang and Aunt Petunia went to answer it while Harry and Uncle Vernon watched Dudley unwrap the racing bike, a video camera, a remote control airplane, sixteen new computer games, and a VCR. He was ripping the paper off a gold wristwatch when Aunt Petunia came back from the telephone looking both angry and worried.**

**"Bad news, Vernon," she said. "Mrs. Figg's broken her leg. She can't take him." She jerked her head in Harry's direction.**

**Dudley's mouth fell open in horror, but Harry's heart gave a leap. Every year on Dudley's birthday, his parents took him and a friend out for the day, to adventure parks, hamburger restaurants, or the movies. Every year, Harry was left behind with Mrs. Figg, a mad old lady who lived two streets away. Harry hated it there. The whole house smelled of cabbage and Mrs. Figg made him look at photographs of all the cats she'd ever owned.** <

"Females of Hogwarts, and Professor McGonagall I assure you all that I love cats, really I do...." Harry said, loudly. "But Mrs. Figg has like twenty of them at all times and you can't walk around without tripping on one, and they leave hair everywhere. " 

He got nods from the female population of the school. 

**"Now what?" said Aunt Petunia, looking furiously at Harry as though he'd planned this. Harry knew he ought to feel sorry that Mrs. Figg had broken her leg, but it wasn't easy when he reminded himself it would be a whole year before he had to look at Tibbles, Snowy, Mr. Paws, and Tufty again.**

**"We could phone Marge," Uncle Vernon suggested.**

**"Don't be silly, Vernon, she hates the boy."**

"The feeling is mutal it's why I blew her up in the first place." Harry grumbled. "Here read this." 

Severus took the essay and began marking on it as Potter leaned into the mutt. 

**The Dursleys often spoke about Harry like this, as though he wasn't there -- or rather, as though he was something very nasty that couldn't understand them, like a slug.**

**"What about what's-her-name, your friend -- Yvonne?"**

**"On vacation in Majorca," snapped Aunt Petunia.**

**"You could just leave me here," Harry put in hopefully (he'd be able to watch what he wanted on television for a change and maybe even have a go on Dudley's computer).**

**Aunt Petunia looked as though she'd just swallowed a lemon.**

"Hermione, computer." Harry said, instantly. 

Hermione stood up and gave a brief, as brief as she could, description of what Computers were and did. Then sat down again. 

"Er........the scary looking guy with the red eyes and snake face sitting at the Slytherin table." Cho said. 

"First, off thank you, Miss. Chang." Voldemort said, with a smirk. "Second off, Harry, that is rather Slytherin of you." 

"Thank you." Harry replied. "Snape?" 

"Mmmm.....Oh, Tuny always looks like she swallowed a lemon." 

"DON'T CALL ME THAT!" Petunia screeched. 

"Tuny." Harry tested it out. "Tuny." 

"NOW LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE!" 

**"And come back and find the house in ruins?" she snarled.**

**"I won't blow up the house," said Harry, but they weren't listening.**

"No that's Seamus' thing." Harry said, absently. 

As if on cue something blew up at the Gryffindor table. 

"Yep that's him." Harry said, "So....." 

"A." 

Harry growled and began working again. 

"That boy is not allowed in our house." Vernon grunted. 

"MADAM POMFREY! PROFESSOR SNAPE! HE'S BLEEDING THIS TIME AND THE BURNS LOOK BAD!" Dean yelled. 

Both sighed and rushed to the Irish boy. 

**"I suppose we could take him to the zoo," said Aunt Petunia slowly, "... and leave him in the car..."**

**"That car's new, he's not sitting in it alone..."**

**Dudley began to cry loudly. In fact, he wasn't really crying -- it had been years since he'd really cried -- but he knew that if he screwed up his face and wailed, his mother would give him anything he wanted.**

**"Dinky Duddydums, don't cry, Mummy won't let him spoil your special day!" she cried, flinging her arms around him.**

**"I... don't... want... him... t-t-to come!" Dudley yelled between huge, pretend sobs. "He always sp-spoils everything!" He shot Harry a nasty grin through the gap in his mother's arms.**

**Just then, the doorbell rang -- "Oh, good Lord, they're here!" said Aunt Petunia frantically -- and a moment later, Dudley's best friend, Piers Polkiss, walked in with his mother. Piers was a scrawny boy with a face like a rat. He was usually the one who held people's arms behind their backs while Dudley hit them. Dudley stopped pretending to cry at once.**

"Seriously?" Cho scoffed rolling her eyes. 

**Half an hour later, Harry, who couldn't believe his luck, was sitting in the back of the Dursleys' car with Piers and Dudley, on the way to the zoo for the first time in his life. His aunt and uncle hadn't been able to think of anything else to do with him, but before they'd left, Uncle Vernon had taken Harry aside.**

"You've never been to the zoo before that?" Sirius frowned. "Well we'll take you to the Greater London Zoo once everyone finds out I'm innocent and I get freed. It's a fully magical zoo......" 

"Then why don't we donate Beaky to the Greater London Zoo?" Harry wondered. 

"A great idea, Puppy!" Sirius boomed and messed up his hair. 

**"I'm warning you," he had said, putting his large purple face right up close to Harry's, "I'm warning you now, boy -- any funny business, anything at all -- and you'll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas."**

"I'm going to go with Professor Snape on this one." Cho said, leaning on the podium. 

"Until Christmas? For using magic that he can't control? And what would you tell his school during all of this, Tuny?" Severus asked in that same deadly voice that had Harry trying to keep him sitting and not murdering his muggle realitives. "Well? Dursley spawn answer me." 

"My name is Dudley and my parents always just told the school that Harry had social anxity disorder and couldn't come as much." 

"Like hell." Hermione scoffed. 

Harry rolled his eyes. 

**"I'm not going to do anything," said Harry, "honestly..."**

**But Uncle Vernon didn't believe him. No one ever did.**

**The problem was, strange things often happened around Harry and it was just no good telling the Dursleys he didn't make them happen.**

"Of course things happened your magic." Sirius said, grinning as Harry still leaned against him. 

**Once, Aunt Petunia, tired of Harry coming back from the barbers looking as though he hadn't been at all, had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut his hair so short he was almost bald except for his bangs, which she left "to hide that horrible scar." Dudley had laughed himself silly at Harry, who spent a sleepless night imagining school the next day, where he was already laughed at for his baggy clothes and taped glasses. Next morning, however, he had gotten up to find his hair exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia had sheared it off. He had been given a week in his cupboard for this, even though he had tried to explain that he couldn't explain how it had grown back so quickly.**

"Me! Me! Call on me!" Tonks called waving her hand. 

"Er......." Cho said, "Lets see ......." 

"Nymphadora Tonks." Draco called. 

Tonks got up and went over to the Slytherin Table and Draco's strangled scream echoed the hall as she smothered him. 

Sirius and Harry were laughing. 

Cho was trying not to laugh as was half the hall. 

"LET ME GO!" Draco bellowed fighting his damndest to get away. "COME ON! AREN'T WE GETTING A LITTLE TOO OLD FOR THIS?! YOU'RE 22 FOR MERLIN'S SAKE......." 

Tonks laid Draco out with spells and jinxes within seconds an annoyed look on her face and her hair had gone purple. She marched angerly back over to the couch. 

"Okay, you regrew you hair rapidly?" Tonks asked. 

"Yep." 

"Hmmm.......well you do have Black blood in you.........." she huffed. "Can you do this?" She changed her hair red. Harry shook his head. "You could possibly have latent or weak Metamorphmagus gene that runs in the Black family. I'm a full one. I'll test you durning break. Don't worry I do all the work." 

"Cho....." 

**Another time, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force him into a revolting old sweater of Dudley's (brown with orange puff balls). The harder she tried to pull it over his head, the smaller it seemed to become, until finally it might have fitted a hand puppet, but certainly wouldn't fit Harry. Aunt Petunia had decided it must have shrunk in the wash and, to his great relief, Harry wasn't punished.**

**On the other hand, he'd gotten into terrible trouble for being found on the roof of the school kitchens. Dudley's gang had been chasing him as usual when, as much to Harry's surprise as anyone else's, there he was sitting on the chimney. The Dursleys had received a very angry letter from Harry's headmistress telling them Harry had been climbing school buildings. But all he'd tried to do (as he shouted at Uncle Vernon through the locked door of his cupboard) was jump behind the big trash cans outside the kitchen doors. Harry supposed that the wind must have caught him in mid-jump.**

<"Miss. Chang, call on me." Severus stated 

"You're getting chosen too much Professor, er......Professor Lupin........" 

"We have a latent or weak Black Gene, Shrinking Charms, and APperation." Remus said, "Harry, you are an incredibly powerful wizard." 

Harry grinned. 

**But today, nothing was going to go wrong. It was even worth being with Dudley and Piers to be spending the day somewhere that wasn't school, his cupboard, or Mrs. Figg's cabbage-smelling living room.**

**While he drove, Uncle Vernon complained to Aunt Petunia. He liked to complain about things: people at work, Harry, the council, Harry, the bank, and Harry were just a few of his favorite subjects. This morning, it was motorcycles.**

**"... roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlums," he said, as a motorcycle overtook them.**

**"I had a dream about a motorcycle," said Harry, remembering suddenly. "It was flying."**

**Uncle Vernon nearly crashed into the car in front. He turned right around in his seat and yelled at Harry, his face like a gigantic beet with a mustache: "MOTORCYCLES DON'T FLY!"**

"Mr. Black." 

"MINE DOES!" Sirius cheered. 

"and I would like to point out that that is against the law, Mr. Black." Dolores Umbridge stated, in a sickingly sweet voice. 

**Dudley and Piers sniggered.**

**"I know they don't," said Harry. "It was only a dream."**

**But he wished he hadn't said anything. If there was one thing the Dursleys hated even more than his asking questions, it was his talking about anything acting in a way it shouldn't, no matter if it was in a dream or even a cartoon -- they seemed to think he might get dangerous ideas.**

**It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with families. The Dursleys bought Dudley and Piers large chocolate ice creams at the entrance and then, because the smiling lady in the van had asked Harry what he wanted before they could hurry him away, they bought him a cheap lemon ice pop. It wasn't bad, either, Harry thought, licking it as they watched a gorilla scratching its head who looked remarkably like Dudley, except that it wasn't blond.**

The Hall roared with laughter and Dudley was left blushing. Vernon and Petunia were glaring. 

**Harry had the best morning he'd had in a long time. He was careful to walk a little way apart from the Dursleys so that Dudley and Piers, who were starting to get bored with the animals by lunchtime, wouldn't fall back on their favorite hobby of hitting him. They ate in the zoo restaurant, and when Dudley had a tantrum because his knickerbocker glory didn't have enough ice cream on top, Uncle Vernon bought him another one and Harry was allowed to finish the first.**

"Snape." 

"Potter, you're an idiot you walk with the adults so that the bullys can get caught if they try bullying you." 

"I know that but I didn't want people to know that I was with him." Harry shrugged, causing more laughter. 

**Harry felt, afterward, that he should have known it was all too good to last.**

**After lunch they went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark in there, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone. Dudley and Piers wanted to see huge, poisonous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons. Dudley quickly found the largest snake in the place. It could have wrapped its body twice around Uncle Vernon's car and crushed it into a trash can -- but at the moment it didn't look in the mood. In fact, it was fast asleep. Dudley stood with his nose pressed against the glass, staring at the glistening brown coils.**

"Oh, wait isn't this the part where I ........." Harry said, looking up from the essay he was working on. 

"Yes, it is." Dudley snapped. 

"You deserved it." 

"Did not!" 

"Did too!" 

"Did not!" 

"Did too!........OW!" Harry rubbed the back of his head. "Headmaster!" 

"Severus, quit hitting Harry." 

**"Make it move," he whined at his father. Uncle Vernon tapped on the glass, but the snake didn't budge.**

**"Do it again," Dudley ordered. Uncle Vernon rapped the glass smartly with his knuckles, but the snake just snoozed on.**

**"This is boring," Dudley moaned. He shuffled away.**

**Harry moved in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake. He wouldn't have been surprised if it had died of boredom itself -- no company except stupid people drumming their fingers on the glass trying to disturb it all day long. It was worse than having a cupboard as a bedroom, where the only visitor was Aunt Petunia hammering on the door to wake you up; at least he got to visit the rest of the house.**

**The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with Harry's.**

**It winked.**

"Granger." Cho sighed. 

"Snakes don't wink they don't have eye lids." 

"Yes, I'm aware of that but if the book and Harry said, that the snake winked I believe it." Cho sighed, "Let us continue." 

**Harry stared. Then he looked quickly around to see if anyone was watching. They weren't. He looked back at the snake and winked, too.**

**The snake jerked its head toward Uncle Vernon and Dudley, then raised its eyes to the ceiling. It gave Harry a look that said quite plainly:**

**"I get that all the time."**

**"I know," Harry murmured through the glass, though he wasn't sure the snake could hear him. "It must be really annoying."**

**The snake nodded vigorously.**

**"Where do you come from, anyway?" Harry asked.**

**The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to the glass. Harry peered at it.**

**Boa Constrictor, Brazil.**

**"Was it nice there?"**

**The boa constrictor jabbed its tail at the sign again and Harry read on: This specimen was bred in the zoo. "Oh, I see -- so you've never been to Brazil?"**

**As the snake shook its head, a deafening shout behind Harry made both of them jump. "DUDLEY! MR. DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!"**

"Tom." Harry called cutting Cho off. 

"Leave it to you to sympathyze with a ............HARRY, GIVE ME BACK MY SNAKE!" Voldemort bellowed. 

Sure enough Harry was hissing to Nagini who was wrapped around his legs. Harry fed the snake a rat out of his potions kit. 

"HARRY, GIVE ME NAGINI BACK THIS INSTANT!" 

Harry ignored him and continued talking to the snake. 

Cho flinched a bit. 

**Dudley came waddling toward them as fast as he could.**

**"Out of the way, you," he said, punching Harry in the ribs. Caught by surprise, Harry fell hard on the concrete floor. What came next happened so fast no one saw how it happened -- one second, Piers and Dudley were leaning right up close to the glass, the next, they had leapt back with howls of horror.**

**Harry sat up and gasped; the glass front of the boa constrictor's tank had vanished. The great snake was uncoiling itself rapidly, slithering out onto the floor. People throughout the reptile house screamed and started running for the exits.**

**As the snake slid swiftly past him, Harry could have sworn a low, hissing voice said, "Brazil, here I come... Thanksss, amigo."  
The keeper of the reptile house was in shock.**

**"But the glass," he kept saying, "where did the glass go?"**

**The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia a cup of strong, sweet tea while he apologized over and over again. Piers and Dudley could only gibber. As far as Harry had seen, the snake hadn't done anything except snap playfully at their heels as it passed, but by the time they were all back in Uncle Vernon's car, Dudley was telling them how it had nearly bitten off his leg, while Piers was swearing it had tried to squeeze him to death. But worst of all, for Harry at least, was Piers calming down enough to say, "Harry was talking to it, weren't you, Harry?"**

**Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house before starting on Harry. He was so angry he could hardly speak. He managed to say, "Go -- cupboard -- stay -- no meals," before he collapsed into a chair, and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy.**

**Harry lay in his dark cupboard much later, wishing he had a watch. He didn't know what time it was and he couldn't be sure the Dursleys were asleep yet. Until they were, he couldn't risk sneaking to the kitchen for some food.**

"You know Nagini I never thought of it like that before." Harry said, ignoring his homework to sit against Sirius' legs and pet the snake. 

"What did she say?" Cho asked. 

"She wanted to know how the snake thought he was going to get to Brazil since we live on an island nation." Harry translated. 

"What a smart snake." Cho said, blinking at it. "That's a really good question. ....... Oh, every female in the school. All together now." 

"NO MEALS?!" 

"HE DIDN'T DESERVE THEM ! " Vernon bellowed back. "DOING ALL THAT FREAKISHNESS........." 

Vernon was yelping in seconds. 

"I don't know there are a lot of Ministry people here that would willingly kill you if you did something like that, Nagini." 

"What did she say?" Cho wondered. 

"She wants to know if I'll let her eat my muggles." Harry translated. 

Cho went pale as Tom sneered. 

**He'd lived with the Dursleys almost ten years, ten miserable years, as long as he could remember, ever since he'd been a baby and his parents had died in that car crash. He couldn't remember being in the car when his parents had died. Sometimes, when he strained his memory during long hours in his cupboard, he came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light and a burning pain on his forehead. This, he supposed, was the crash, though he couldn't imagine where all the green light came from. He couldn't remember his parents at all. His aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and of course he was forbidden to ask questions. There were no photographs of them in the house.**

**When he had been younger, Harry had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take him away, but it had never happened; the Dursleys were his only family. Yet sometimes he thought (or maybe hoped) that strangers in the street seemed to know him. Very strange strangers they were, too. A tiny man in a violet top hat had bowed to him once while out shopping with Aunt Petunia and Dudley. After asking Harry furiously if he knew the man, Aunt Petunia had rushed them out of the shop without buying anything. A wild-looking old woman dressed all in green had waved merrily at him once on a bus. A bald man in a very long purple coat had actually shaken his hand in the street the other day and then walked away without a word. The weirdest thing about all these people was the way they seemed to vanish the second Harry tried to get a closer look.**

"Okay, so that's another thing that bugs me." Harry said, "If these people can just come up to me, shake my hand and vanish then what was to stop them from apperating away with me?" 

That started another up roar. But Harry ignored all of them and focused on the snake in front of him. 

**At school, Harry had no one. Everybody knew that Dudley's gang hated that odd Harry Potter in his baggy old clothes and broken glasses, and nobody liked to disagree with Dudley's gang.**

"That is the end of the chapter." 


	3. Chapter 3

"Okay, so now who to pick to read." Harry said, petting Nagini. Hermione's hand was waving in the air as she almost jumped up and down. "Susan Bones from Hufflepuff." 

Hermione sat down pouting. 

Susan went to the podium blushing. 

"Okay, lets see," she cleared her throat. 

**The escape of the Brazilian boa constrictor earned Harry his longest-ever punishment. By the time he was allowed out of his cupboard again, the summer holidays had started and Dudley had already broken his new video camera, crashed his remote control airplane, and, first time out on his racing bike, knocked down old Mrs. Figg as she crossed Privet Drive on her crutches.**

There was general muttering about what a terrible kid Dudley was. 

**Harry was glad school was over, but there was no escaping Dudley's gang, who visited the house every single day. Piers, Dennis, Malcolm, and Gordon were all big and stupid, but as Dudley was the biggest and stupidest of the lot, he was the leader. The rest of them were all quite happy to join in Dudley's favorite sport: Harry Hunting.**

"Snape?" Harry said. 

"That sounds oddly familiar doesn't it, Black? Lupin?" 

Remus blushed and Sirius just ignored him. 

"Sirius?" 

"Harry Hunting?" Sirius raged, "What is Harry Hunting?" 

"Oh, they chase me around and if they catch me they beat me up." Harry explained. "But don't worry they hardly ever catch me. I may not look it but I'm very fast." 

This made people angry. 

Susan smartly didn't call on anyone and just started reading again. 

**This was why Harry spent as much time as possible out of the house, wandering around and thinking about the end of the holidays, where he could see a tiny ray of hope. When September came he would be going off to secondary school and, for the first time in his life, he wouldn't be with Dudley. Dudley had been accepted at Uncle Vernon's old private school, Smeltings.**

"But if he's as stupid as this book says and we've been told how did he get into Smeltings?" Susan asked. 

"Money talks." Harry informed. "Like it said, Uncle Vernon went to Smelting's he made a "Contrabution" to their new Science Lab and bam Dudley was in."

**Piers Polkiss was going there too. Harry, on the other hand, was going to Stonewall High, the local public school. Dudley thought this was very funny.**

**"They stuff people's heads down the toilet the first day at Stonewall," he told Harry. "Want to come upstairs and practice?"**

**"No, thanks," said Harry. "The poor toilet's never had anything as horrible as your head down it -- it might be sick." Then he ran, before Dudley could work out what he'd said.**

The Hall laughed and Dudley glared. 

"Good one, puppy!" Sirius praised. 

Severus rolled his eyes. 

"How's this?" Harry said, forcing Snape to take his essay.

**One day in July, Aunt Petunia took Dudley to London to buy his Smeltings uniform, leaving Harry at Mrs. Figg's. Mrs. Figg wasn't as bad as usual. It turned out she'd broken her leg tripping over one of her cats, and she didn't seem quite as fond of them as before. She let Harry watch television and gave him a bit of chocolate cake that tasted as though she'd had it for several years.**

**That evening, Dudley paraded around the living room for the family in his brand-new uniform. Smeltings' boys wore maroon tailcoats, orange knickerbockers, and flat straw hats called boaters. They also carried knobbly sticks, used for hitting each other while the teachers weren't looking. This was supposed to be good training for later life.**

"How is that good training for later in life?" Susan demanded incrediously. "Harry's cousin, answer!" 

"If you figure it out let me know." Dudley said. "and my name is Dudley!" 

**As he looked at Dudley in his new knickerbockers, Uncle Vernon said gruffly that it was the proudest moment of his life. Aunt Petunia burst into tears and said she couldn't believe it was her Ickle Dudleykins, he looked so handsome and grown-up. Harry didn't trust himself to speak. He thought two of his ribs might already have cracked from trying not to laugh.**

Dudley blushed again.

**There was a horrible smell in the kitchen the next morning when Harry went in for breakfast. It seemed to be coming from a large metal tub in the sink. He went to have a look. The tub was full of what looked like dirty rags swimming in gray water.**

**"What's this?" he asked Aunt Petunia. Her lips tightened as they always did if he dared to ask a question.**

**"Your new school uniform," she said.**

**Harry looked in the bowl again.**

**"Oh," he said, "I didn't realize it had to be so wet."**

**"Don't be stupid," snapped Aunt Petunia. "I'm dyeing some of Dudley's old things gray for you. It'll look just like everyone else's when I've finished."**

**Harry seriously doubted this, but thought it best not to argue. He sat down at the table and tried not to think about how he was going to look on his first day at Stonewall High -- like he was wearing bits of old elephant skin, probably.**

Susan looked up. 

"Uhm.....lets see......" she looked around ignoring Hermione's hand. "You at the Slytherin Table who looks a Black ......." 

"Her name is Andormeda Tonks." Sirius called. 

"Yes, okay, Mrs. Tonks." Susan said. 

"You people couldn't even be bothered to buy the boy a school uniform?!" Andormeda growled.

"Naw, that would cost them money." Harry explained.

"We weren't getting paid for taking care of him!" Vernon snapped. 

"Auntie Amelia." Susan said.

"What do you mean you weren't getting paid?" Amelia Bones asked. "you should have gotten a stipend for taking care of the child." 

"We never got a single cent." Vernon stated firmly. 

"I assure you that I'll be looking into this." Amelia said, writing it down. 

Dumbledore wasn't happy to hear this. This book was already ruining his carefully laid plans and getting him in trouble. He didn't want people knowing any of this.

"What's that, Nagini?" Harry asked, as he once again worked. He was soon nodding. "Nagini has pointed out that the Headmaster left me with the Dursley's so wouldn't he have also been responsible for seeing that the Ministry knew where I was and made sure that they got the stipend?" 

Dumbldore was furious again. 

"That is one smart snake." Susan said. 

"Most snakes are." Harry said. 

"The pink lady sitting next to the Minister." Harry chose.

"I'm Dorles Umbridge Senior Undersecritary to the Minister of Magic." The woman said, standing. "I would like to know the answer to that myself Dumbledore. It is a breech of our orphan laws." 

Dumbledore fumbled his way through an answer and finally got out. 

"Like i said before it was for the best that no one know where he was." Dumbledore finally answered. 

Dorles kept asking questions that made Dumbledore falter. 

Amelia was taking notes rapidly with a self writing quill. 

"Susan, please continue." 

Susan nodded.

**Dudley and Uncle Vernon came in, both with wrinkled noses because of the smell from Harry's new uniform. Uncle Vernon opened his newspaper as usual and Dudley banged his Smelting stick, which he carried everywhere, on the table.**

**They heard the click of the mail slot and flop of letters on the doormat.**

**"Get the mail, Dudley," said Uncle Vernon from behind his paper.**

**"Make Harry get it."**

**"Get the mail, Harry."**

**"Make Dudley get it."**

**"Poke him with your Smelting stick, Dudley."**

**Harry dodged the Smelting stick and went to get the mail. Three things lay on the doormat: a postcard from Uncle Vernon's sister Marge, who was vacationing on the Isle of Wight, a brown envelope that looked like a bill, and -- a letter for Harry.**

The Hall began clapping causing Harry to blush.

**Harry picked it up and stared at it, his heart twanging like a giant elastic band. No one, ever, in his whole life, had written to him. Who would? He had no friends, no other relatives -- he didn't belong to the library, so he'd never even got rude notes asking for books back. Yet here it was, a letter, addressed so plainly there could be no mistake:**

Susan sighed. 

"Hermione Granger." 

"YOU DIDN'T BELONG TO THE LIBRARY?!" Hermione bellowed. Her face red in anger. 

"Of course I didn't." Harry answered easily. "It's not that I don't like reading because I do it's just that the one time I brought a book home from the school library uncle Vernon destroyed it and I didn't want that to happen to other books. So I just didn't become part of the library. Besides, I rarely had time to read books. I had a lot chore growing up." 

Severus wanted to counter that but from what he'd already learned of Harry's life so far he kept his mouth shut.

**Mr. H. Potter**

**The Cupboard under the Stairs**

**4 Privet Drive**

**Little Whinging**

**Surrey**

"I have a question about that." Harry said, "How are the Hogwarts letters addressed, Professor McGonagall?" 

"Every letter is written with a Self-Writing quill. I hardly ever see the addresses." Minerva answered. "I'll be sure to pay more attention in the future but the thing is Mr. Potter, I didn't mail your letter out. The Headmaster did. " 

"Auntie!" Susan picked. 

"Why did you do that, Minerva?" Amelia wondered. "It is your job as Deputy to make sure every letter is mailed out. The Headmaster should not have any contact with these letters." 

"Well, .........he asked........ and it was a special cercemstances......." 

"No excuse." Amelia said. 

Umbridge was rubbing her hands together a nasty gleam in here eye.

"Susan, dear, continue." 

"Yes, Auntie." 

**The envelope was thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the address was written in emerald-green ink. There was no stamp.**

**Turning the envelope over, his hand trembling, Harry saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake surrounding a large letter H.  
"Hurry up, boy!" shouted Uncle Vernon from the kitchen. "What are you doing, checking for letter bombs?" He chuckled at his own joke.**

**Harry went back to the kitchen, still staring at his letter. He handed Uncle Vernon the bill and the postcard, sat down, and slowly began to open the yellow envelope.**

"Lord Black." Susan picked pointing at Sirius

Sirius flinched at the Title. 

"Puppy, no. You should have put it in your cupboard or your oversized pocket." Sirius sighed, shaking his head. 

Severus smacked Harry upside the head again. 

"See? Even Snape agrees with me on this one." Sirius said. 

"Headmaster!" 

"Severus, quit hitting Harry!" 

"Hind sight is 20/20." Harry sighed. 

"What's that mean?" Susan asked. 

"It means It's easy to know the right thing to do after something has happened, but it's hard to predict the future." Harry explained. 

Susan nodded. 

**Uncle Vernon ripped open the bill, snorted in disgust, and flipped over the postcard.**

**"Marge's ill," he informed Aunt Petunia. "Ate a funny whelk..."**

**"Dad!" said Dudley suddenly. "Dad, Harry's got something!"**

"Dobby!" Harry called. 

Dudley grunted and yelped as he was hit.

**Harry was on the point of unfolding his letter, which was written on the same heavy parchment as the envelope, when it was jerked sharply out of his hand by Uncle Vernon.**

**"That's mine!" said Harry, trying to snatch it back.**

**"Who'd be writing to you?" sneered Uncle Vernon, shaking the letter open with one hand and glancing at it. His face went from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights. And it didn't stop there. Within seconds it was the grayish white of old porridge.**

**"P-P-Petunia!" he gasped.**

**Dudley tried to grab the letter to read it, but Uncle Vernon held it high out of his reach. Aunt Petunia took it curiously and read the first line. For a moment it looked as though she might faint. She clutched her throat and made a choking noise.**

**"Vernon! Oh my goodness -- Vernon!"**

**They stared at each other, seeming to have forgotten that Harry and Dudley were still in the room. Dudley wasn't used to being ignored. He gave his father a sharp tap on the head with his Smelting stick.**

"Professor Lupin." Susan chose. 

"Why the over reaction? You knew the letter was coming. You've seen him doing magic. " Remus stated. 

"The over reaction gets worse." Harry said, tossing him a smile. "Please, keep reading, Susan." 

**"I want to read that letter," he said loudly.**

**"I want to read it," said Harry furiously, "as it's mine."**

**"Get out, both of you," croaked Uncle Vernon, stuffing the letter back inside its envelope.**

**Harry didn't move.**

**"I WANT MY LETTER!" he shouted.**

**"Let me see it!" demanded Dudley.**

**"OUT!" roared Uncle Vernon, and he took both Harry and Dudley by the scruffs of their necks and threw them into the hall, slamming the kitchen door behind them. Harry and Dudley promptly had a furious but silent fight over who would listen at the keyhole; Dudley won, so Harry, his glasses dangling from one ear, lay flat on his stomach to listen at the crack between door and floor.**

**"Vernon," Aunt Petunia was saying in a quivering voice, "look at the address -- how could they possibly know where he sleeps? You don't think they're watching the house?"**

**"Watching -- spying -- might be following us," muttered Uncle Vernon wildly.**

**"But what should we do, Vernon? Should we write back? Tell them we don't want--"**

**Harry could see Uncle Vernon's shiny black shoes pacing up and down the kitchen.**

**"No," he said finally. "No, we'll ignore it. If they don't get an answer... Yes, that's best... we won't do anything..."**

"Proffesor McGonagall." 

"Normally, that would have worked." Minerva said, "If we don't get a response we don't bother them again." 

"Then why did all that shit happen!" Vernon demanded. 

"What happened?"

"You'll see." 

**"But--"**

**"I'm not having one in the house, Petunia! Didn't we swear when we took him in we'd stamp out that dangerous nonsense?"**

**That evening when he got back from work, Uncle Vernon did something he'd never done before; he visited Harry in his cupboard.**

**"Where's my letter?" said Harry, the moment Uncle Vernon had squeezed through the door. "Who's writing to me?"**

**"No one. It was addressed to you by mistake," said Uncle Vernon shortly. "I have burned it."**

**"It was not a mistake," said Harry angrily, "it had my cupboard on it."**

**"SILENCE!" yelled Uncle Vernon, and a couple of spiders fell from the ceiling. He took a few deep breaths and then forced his face into a smile, which looked quite painful.**

**"Er -- yes, Harry -- about this cupboard. Your aunt and I have been thinking... you're really getting a bit big for it... we think it might be nice if you moved into Dudley's second bedroom.**

"SECOND BEDROOM?!" Susan cried. "Harry is living in a cupboard and his oaf of a cousin has two rooms?!" 

People all over the Hall were nodding in agreement.

"Er......yes, well......" Vernon said, going puce again. A sure sign that he was angry. 

Susan glared at him but returned to the book. The CHapter wasn't done yet.

**"Why?" said Harry.**

**"Don't ask questions!" snapped his uncle. "Take this stuff upstairs, now."**

**The Dursleys' house had four bedrooms: one for Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, one for visitors (usually Uncle Vernon's sister, Marge), one where Dudley slept, and one where Dudley kept all the toys and things that wouldn't fit into his first bedroom.**

"SERIOUSLY?!" Susan yelled again. "I'm beginning to see why people in world think Muggles are terrible." 

"Not all of them are, Susan.' Harry cut in. "I just have bad luck. I know some great muggles. Just like there are good and bad Witches and Wizards there are good and bad Muggles. "

Susan frowned but nodded, she gussed that made sense.

**It only took Harry one trip upstairs to move everything he owned from the cupboard to this room. He sat down on the bed and stared around him. Nearly everything in here was broken. The month-old video camera was lying on top of a small, working tank Dudley had once driven over the next door neighbor's dog; in the corner was Dudley's first-ever television set, which he'd put his foot through when his favorite program had been canceled; there was a large birdcage, which had once held a parrot that Dudley had swapped at school for a real air rifle, which was up on a shelf with the end all bent because Dudley had sat on it. Other shelves were full of books. They were the only things in the room that looked as though they'd never been touched.**

There was a scoff from Hermione at the Gryffindor table. 

"Televison, a Tank, an Air Rifle?" Susan frowned. "I've heard of Television before.....Granger, explain!" 

Hermione sighed, stood and did just that it was clear that she didn't approve of Dudley's toy choice or that he didn't touch the books. When she was done she sat down.

**From downstairs came the sound of Dudley bawling at his mother, I don't want him in there... I need that room... make him get out..."**

**Harry sighed and stretched out on the bed. Yesterday he'd have given anything to be up here. Today he'd rather be back in his cupboard with that letter than up here without it.  
Next morning at breakfast, everyone was rather quiet. Dudley was in shock. He'd screamed, whacked his father with his Smelting stick, been sick on purpose, kicked his mother, and thrown his tortoise through the greenhouse roof, and he still didn't have his room back. Harry was thinking about this time yesterday and bitterly wishing he'd opened the letter in the hall. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia kept looking at each other darkly.**

"Neville Longbottom." Susan chose. 

"You had a greenhouse?" Neville asked. 

"Yeah, but it's not a big one." Harry said, "and it doesn't have any cool Muggle plants or anything. My aunt keeps her Prize Winning Roses in there. Only having one plant in a greenhouse kinda takes away from the fun." 

Neville agreed. 

"Er........Lady Greengrass!" 

Molly huffed that she hadn't been chosen.

"You let your child act like that?!" Lady Greengrass demanded. "My girls are spoiled but they would never act like that! Who is in control of your household? You or him?!" 

Mothers all around were nodding.

"Your son will never be a productive member of society if you continue raising him like this!" Lady Greengrass finished. 

She got a lot of noise of agreement.

**When the mail arrived, Uncle Vernon, who seemed to be trying to be nice to Harry, made Dudley go and get it. They heard him banging things with his Smelting stick all the way down the hall. Then he shouted, "There's another one! 'Mr. H. Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive -- '"**

**With a strangled cry, Uncle Vernon leapt from his seat and ran down the hall, Harry right behind him. Uncle Vernon had to wrestle Dudley to the ground to get the letter from him, which was made difficult by the fact that Harry had grabbed Uncle Vernon around the neck from behind. After a minute of confused fighting, in which everyone got hit a lot by the Smelting stick, Uncle Vernon straightened up, gasping for breath, with Harry's letter clutched in his hand.**

**"Go to your cupboard -- I mean, your bedroom," he wheezed at Harry. "Dudley -- go -- just go."**

**Harry walked round and round his new room. Someone knew he had moved out of his cupboard and they seemed to know he hadn't received his first letter. Surely that meant they'd try again? And this time he'd make sure they didn't fail. He had a plan.**

**The repaired alarm clock rang at six o'clock the next morning. Harry turned it off quickly and dressed silently. He mustn't wake the Dursleys. He stole downstairs without turning on any of the lights.**

"Harry, did you repair the alarm clock with Accidental Magic?" Susan asked. 

"Actually no." Harry said, shaking his head. "Dudley used to have a habit of taking things apart then complaining that he couldn't get them to work anymore blaming me. So I learned how to put a few things back together. After that Dudley learned to just smash his alarm clocks." 

Dudley blushed worse.

**He was going to wait for the postman on the corner of Privet Drive and get the letters for number four first. His heart hammered as he crept across the dark hall toward the front door --**

**"AAAAARRRGH!"**

**Harry leapt into the air; he'd trodden on something big and squashy on the doormat -- something alive!**

**Lights clicked on upstairs and to his horror Harry realized that the big, squashy something had been his uncle's face. Uncle Vernon had been lying at the foot of the front door in a sleeping bag, clearly making sure that Harry didn't do exactly what he'd been trying to do. He shouted at Harry for about half an hour and then told him to go and make a cup of tea. Harry shuffled miserably off into the kitchen and by the time he got back, the mail had arrived, right into Uncle Vernon's lap. Harry could see three letters addressed in green ink.**

**"I want -- " he began, but Uncle Vernon was tearing the letters into pieces before his eyes.**

**Uncle Vernon didn't go to work that day. He stayed at home and nailed up the mail slot.**

**"See," he explained to Aunt Petunia through a mouthful of nails, "if they can't deliver them they'll just give up."**

**"I'm not sure that'll work, Vernon."**

**"Oh, these people's minds work in strange ways, Petunia, they're not like you and me," said Uncle Vernon, trying to knock in a nail with the piece of fruitcake Aunt Petunia had just brought him.**

"Our minds work in strange ways?" Susan huffed. "DOBBY!" 

"Dobby, please go ahead." Harry said, with a smirk trying to hold back a laugh. 

Vernon yelped and grunted as he was punished. 

"Anyone from the Slytherin table!" Susan said. 

"Stupid Muggles." Came the voices of the Death Eaters that had been Azkaban chorused.

**On Friday, no less than twelve letters arrived for Harry. As they couldn't go through the mail slot they had been pushed under the door, slotted through the sides, and a few even forced through the small window in the downstairs bathroom.**

**Uncle Vernon stayed at home again. After burning all the letters, he got out a hammer and nails and boarded up the cracks around the front and back doors so no one could go out. He hummed "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" as he worked, and jumped at small noises.**

**On Saturday, things began to get out of hand. Twenty-four letters to Harry found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two dozen eggs that their very confused milkman had handed Aunt Petunia through the living room window. While Uncle Vernon made furious telephone calls to the post office and the dairy trying to find someone to complain to, Aunt Petunia shredded the letters in her food processor.**

**"Who on earth wants to talk to you this badly?" Dudley asked Harry in amazement.**

**On Sunday morning, Uncle Vernon sat down at the breakfast table looking tired and rather ill, but happy.**

**"No post on Sundays," he reminded them cheerfully as he spread marmalade on his newspapers, "no damn letters today--"**

"Weasley Twins." Susan said. 

"WE WANNA TALK TO HARRY THAT BAD!" the two chorused. 

"Minister." 

"Muggles don't get post on Sundays?" He asked, "Is that truely a thing?" 

"Yes, it is." Harry answered. "They get special sunday newspapers but they don't get mail. " 

"Interesting." 

"It's because Sunday used to be and in some places and with most people still is a Holy day where they practice their religon and pray to their Gods." Harry explained. "For as long as the postal service was a thing there has never once been post on Sunday's." 

**Something came whizzing down the kitchen chimney as he spoke and caught him sharply on the back of the head. Next moment, thirty or forty letters came pelting out of the fireplace like bullets. The Dursleys ducked, but Harry leapt into the air trying to catch one --**

**"Out! OUT!"**

**Uncle Vernon seized Harry around the waist and threw him into the hall. When Aunt Petunia and Dudley had run out with their arms over their faces, Uncle Vernon slammed the door shut. They could hear the letters still streaming into the room, bouncing off the walls and floor.**

Severus smacked Harry upside the head.

"Headmaster!" 

"Severus, don't hit Harry." 

"Professor Snape, do you want to say anything?" Susan asked, laughter in her voice.

"Training to be a Seeker early, Potter?" Severus sneered. "Grab one off of the floor, idiot boy!" 

**"That does it," said Uncle Vernon, trying to speak calmly but pulling great tufts out of his mustache at the same time. "I want you all back here in five minutes ready to leave. We're going away. Just pack some clothes. No arguments!"**

**He looked so dangerous with half his mustache missing that no one dared argue. Ten minutes later they had wrenched their way through the boarded-up doors and were in the car, speeding toward the highway. Dudley was sniffling in the back seat; his father had hit him round the head for holding them up while he tried to pack his television, VCR, and computer in his sports bag.**

"VCR? " Susan sighed, "Ugh, these Muggle terms are driving me crazy. Granger!" 

Hermione sighed and once again explained.

Susan nodded. 

**They drove. And they drove. Even Aunt Petunia didn't dare ask where they were going. Every now and then Uncle Vernon would take a sharp turn and drive in the opposite direction for a while.**

**"Shake 'em off... shake 'em off," he would mutter whenever he did this.**

**They didn't stop to eat or drink all day. By nightfall Dudley was howling. He'd never had such a bad day in his life. He was hungry, he'd missed five television programs he'd wanted to see, and he'd never gone so long without blowing up an alien on his computer.**

**Uncle Vernon stopped at last outside a gloomy-looking hotel on the outskirts of a big city. Dudley and Harry shared a room with twin beds and damp, musty sheets. Dudley snored but Harry stayed awake, sitting on the windowsill, staring down at the lights of passing cars and wondering...**

**They ate stale cornflakes and cold tinned tomatoes on toast for breakfast the next day. They had just finished when the owner of the hotel came over to their table.**

**"'Scuse me, but is one of you Mr. H. Potter? Only I got about an 'undred of these at the front desk."**

**She held up a letter so they could read the green ink address:**

**Mr. H. Potter  
Room 17  
Railview Hotel  
Cokeworth**

**Harry made a grab for the letter but Uncle Vernon knocked his hand out of the way. The woman stared.**

**"I'll take them," said Uncle Vernon, standing up quickly and following her from the dining room.**

**"Wouldn't it be better just to go home, dear?" Aunt Petunia suggested timidly, hours later, but Uncle Vernon didn't seem to hear her. Exactly what he was looking for, none of them knew. He drove them into the middle of a forest, got out, looked around, shook his head, got back in the car, and off they went again. The same thing happened in the middle of a plowed field, halfway across a suspension bridge, and at the top of a multilevel parking garage.**

**"Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he?" Dudley asked Aunt Petunia dully late that afternoon. Uncle Vernon had parked at the coast, locked them all inside the car, and disappeared.**

"Yes, Harry's Cousin, your father has gone mad." Susan answered, absently earning her some laughs. She looked so disgusted right now. "Oh, poor Harry, having to put up with this." 

She got nods of agreement mostly from the female population. 

Umbridge wasn't happy that this books was gaining Potter sympathy.

**It started to rain. Great drops beat on the roof of the car. Dudley sniveled.**

**"It's Monday," he told his mother. "The Great Humberto's on tonight. I want to stay somewhere with a television."**

**Monday. This reminded Harry of something. If it was Monday -- and you could usually count on Dudley to know the days the week, because of television -- then tomorrow, Tuesday, was Harry's eleventh birthday. Of course, his birthdays were never exactly fun -- last year, the Dursleys had given him a coat hanger and a pair of Uncle Vernon's old socks. Still, you weren't eleven every day.**

**Uncle Vernon was back and he was smiling. He was also carrying a long, thin package and didn't answer Aunt Petunia when she asked what he'd bought.  
"Found the perfect place!" he said. "Come on! Everyone out!"**

**It was very cold outside the car. Uncle Vernon was pointing at what looked like a large rock way out at sea. Perched on top of the rock was the most miserable little shack you could imagine. One thing was certain, there was no television in there.**

**"Storm forecast for tonight!" said Uncle Vernon gleefully, clapping his hands together. "And this gentleman's kindly agreed to lend us his boat!"**

**A toothless old man came ambling up to them, pointing, with a rather wicked grin, at an old rowboat bobbing in the iron-gray water below them.**

**"I've already got us some rations," said Uncle Vernon, "so all aboard!"**

**It was freezing in the boat. Icy sea spray and rain crept down their necks and a chilly wind whipped their faces. After what seemed like hours they reached the rock, where Uncle Vernon, slipping and sliding, led the way to the broken-down house.**

**The inside was horrible; it smelled strongly of seaweed, the wind whistled through the gaps in the wooden walls, and the fireplace was damp and empty. There were only two rooms.**

**Uncle Vernon's rations turned out to be a bag of chips each and four bananas. He tried to start a fire but the empty chip bags just smoked and shriveled up.**

**"Could do with some of those letters now, eh?" he said cheerfully.**

**He was in a very good mood. Obviously he thought nobody stood a chance of reaching them here in a storm to deliver mail. Harry privately agreed, though the thought didn't cheer him up at all.**

**As night fell, the promised storm blew up around them. Spray from the high waves splattered the walls of the hut and a fierce wind rattled the filthy windows. Aunt Petunia found a few moldy blankets in the second room and made up a bed for Dudley on the moth-eaten sofa. She and Uncle Vernon went off to the lumpy bed next door, and Harry was left to find the softest bit of floor he could and to curl up under the thinnest, most ragged blanket.**

"This just keeps getting worse." Susan muttered but everyone heard her. "Did you honestly think a house on a rock in the middle of a storm would stop people with magic from getting to you?" 

Vernon was shaking in rage at the glares he was getting. 

**The storm raged more and more ferociously as the night went on. Harry couldn't sleep. He shivered and turned over, trying to get comfortable, his stomach rumbling with hunger. Dudley's snores were drowned by the low rolls of thunder that started near midnight. The lighted dial of Dudley's watch, which was dangling over the edge of the sofa on his fat wrist, told Harry he'd be eleven in ten minutes' time. He lay and watched his birthday tick nearer, wondering if the Dursleys would remember at all, wondering where the letter writer was now.**

**Five minutes to go. Harry heard something creak outside. He hoped the roof wasn't going to fall in, although he might be warmer if it did. Four minutes to go. Maybe the house in Privet Drive would be so full of letters when they got back that he'd be able to steal one somehow.**

**Three minutes to go. Was that the sea, slapping hard on the rock like that? And (two minutes to go) what was that funny crunching noise? Was the rock crumbling into the sea?  
One minute to go and he'd be eleven. Thirty seconds... twenty... ten... nine -- maybe he'd wake Dudley up, just to annoy him -- three... two... one...**

**BOOM.**

**The whole shack shivered and Harry sat bolt upright, staring at the door. Someone was outside, knocking to come in.**

"That's the end of the chapter." Susan said. 

"WHAT YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS?!" the hall cried. "YOU CAN'T END IT THERE!" 

"Break time!" Harry sang, "Here read this one!" 

Severus sighed and took Harry's essay.


	4. Chapter 4

After the break was over everyone rushed back to the tables. 

"Okay, time for a reader from Gryffindor," Harry said, sure enough, Hermione was standing and waving her hand in the air. "Remus." 

Hermione pouted and sat down as Remus walked to the podium. 

"Remus Lupin. " he introduced himself. "Gryffindor. Now let's get this going shall we?" 

" **The Keeper of the Keys**." Remus read. 

There was whispering. 

**BOOM. They knocked again. Dudley jerked awake.**

**"Where's the cannon?" he said stupidly.**

Dudley moaned loudly and facepalmed as the hall laughed at him.

**There was a crash behind them and Uncle Vernon came skidding into the room. He was holding a rifle in his hands - now they knew what had been in the long, thin package he had brought with them.**

**"Who's there?" he shouted. "I warn you -- I'm armed!"'**

**There was a pause. Then --**

**SMASH!**

"What's a rifle?" someone called. 

"It's a muggle weapon," Harry said. 

He tried to explain what the rifle was. He thought he had done a good enough job of it. 

**The door was hit with such force that it swung clean off its hinges and with a deafening crash landed flat on the floor.**

**A giant of a man was standing in the doorway. His face was almost completely hidden by a long, shaggy mane of hair and a wild, tangled beard, but you could make out his eyes, glinting like black beetles under all the hair.**

"HAGRID!" most of the hall called.

**The giant squeezed his way into the hut, stooping so that his head just brushed the ceiling. He bent down, picked up the door, and fitted it easily back into its frame. The noise of the storm outside dropped a little. He turned to look at them all.**

**"Couldn't make us a cup o' tea, could yeh? It's not been an easy journey..."**

**He strode over to the sofa where Dudley sat frozen with fear.**

**"Budge up, yeh great lump," said the stranger.**

**Dudley squeaked and ran to hide behind his mother, who was crouching, terrified, behind Uncle Vernon.**

**"An' here's Harry!" said the giant.**

**Harry looked up into the fierce, wild, shadowy face and saw that the beetle eyes were crinkled in a smile.**

**"Las' time I saw you, you was only a baby," said the giant. "Yeh look a lot like yer dad, but yeh've got yer mom's eyes."**

"Must everyone say that?" Harry sighed, shaking his head. "It's so annoying."

Remus smiled at Harry. 

**Uncle Vernon made a funny rasping noise.**

**"I demand that you leave at once, sir!" he said. "You are breaking and entering!"**

**"Ah, shut up, Dursley, yeh great prune," said the giant; he reached over the back of the sofa, jerked the gun out of Uncle Vernon's hands, bent it into a knot as easily as if it had been made of rubber, and threw it into a corner of the room.**

**Uncle Vernon made another funny noise, like a mouse being trodden on.**

**"Anyway -- Harry," said the giant, turning his back on the Dursleys, "a very happy birthday to yeh. Got summat fer yeh here -- I mighta sat on it at some point, but it'll taste all right."**

**From an inside pocket of his black overcoat he pulled a slightly squashed box. Harry opened it with trembling fingers. Inside was a large, sticky chocolate cake with Happy Birthday Harry written on it in green icing.**

**Harry looked up at the giant. He meant to say thank you, but the words got lost on the way to his mouth, and what he said instead was, "Who are you?"  
The giant chuckled.**

**"True, I haven't introduced meself. Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts."**

**He held out an enormous hand and shook Harry's whole arm.**

**"What about that tea then, eh?" he said, rubbing his hands together. "I'd not say no ter summat stronger if yeh've got it, mind."**

**His eyes fell on the empty grate with the shriveled chip bags in it and he snorted. He bent down over the fireplace; they couldn't see what he was doing but when he drew back a second later, there was a roaring fire there. It filled the whole damp hut with flickering light and Harry felt the warmth wash over him as though he'd sunk into a hot bath.  
The giant sat back down on the sofa, which sagged under his weight, and began taking all sorts of things out of the pockets of his coat: a copper kettle, a squashy package of sausages, a poker, a teapot, several chipped mugs, and a bottle of some amber liquid that he took a swig from before starting to make tea. Soon the hut was full of the sound and smell of sizzling sausage. Nobody said a thing while the giant was working, but as he slid the first six fat, juicy, slightly burnt sausages from the poker, Dudley fidgeted a little. Uncle Vernon said sharply, "Don't touch anything he gives you, Dudley."**

**The giant chuckled darkly.**

**"Yer great puddin' of a son don' need fattenin' anymore, Dursley, don' worry."**

**He passed the sausages to Harry, who was so hungry he had never tasted anything so wonderful, but he still couldn't take his eyes off the giant. Finally, as nobody seemed about to explain anything, he said, "I'm sorry, but I still don't really know who you are."**

**The giant took a gulp of tea and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.**

**"Call me Hagrid," he said, "everyone does. An' like I told yeh, I'm Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts -- yeh'll know all about Hogwarts, o' course."**

Everyone was thinking the same thing why was Hagrid acting like this? But none of them voiced their questions. 

**"Er -- no," said Harry.**

**Hagrid looked shocked.**

**"Sorry," Harry said quickly.**

**"Sorry ?" barked Hagrid, turning to stare at the Dursleys, who shrank back into the shadows. "It's them as should be sorry! I knew yeh weren't gettin' yer letters but I never thought yeh wouldn't even know abou' Hogwarts, fer cryin' out loud! Did yeh never wonder where yer parents learned it all?"**

**"All what?" asked Harry.**

**"ALL WHAT?" Hagrid thundered. "Now wait jus' one second!"**

**He had leapt to his feet. In his anger he seemed to fill the whole hut. The Dursleys were cowering against the wall.**

**"Do you mean ter tell me," he growled at the Dursleys, "that this boy -- this boy! -- knows nothin' abou' -- about ANYTHING?"**

**Harry thought this was going a bit far. He had been to school, after all, and his marks weren't bad.**

**"I know some things," he said. "I can, you know, do math and stuff."**

Again there was laughter. 

"Not very well," Hermione muttered. 

Harry frowned at her. What was she going on about? Sure he hid how smart he was but did she really believe that he couldn't do anything without her. 

Remus heard too and glared at her. 

Dumbledore had heard her too and wished the girl would shut up. He needed her to stay close to Harry. 

**But Hagrid simply waved his hand and said, "About our world, I mean. Your world. My world. Yer parents' world."**

**"What world?"**

**Hagrid looked as if he was about to explode.**

**"DURSLEY!" he boomed.**

**Uncle Vernon, who had gone very pale, whispered something that sounded like "Mimblewimble." Hagrid stared wildly at Harry.**

**"But yeh must know about yer mom and dad," he said. "I mean, they're famous. You're famous."**

**"What? My -- my mom and dad weren't famous, were they?"**

**"Yeh don' know... yeh don' know... " Hagrid ran his fingers through his hair, fixing Harry with a bewildered stare.**

**"Yeh don' know what yeh are ?" he said finally.**

**Uncle Vernon suddenly found his voice.**

**"Stop!" he commanded. "Stop right there, sir! I forbid you to tell the boy anything!"**

**A braver man than Vernon Dursley would have quailed under the furious look Hagrid now gave him; when Hagrid spoke, his every syllable trembled with rage.**

**"You never told him? Never told him what was in the letter Dumbledore left fer him? I was there! I saw Dumbledore leave it, Dursley! An' you've kept it from him all these years?"**

**"Kept what from me?" said Harry eagerly.**

Remus looked up and looked around at the sea of hands in the air. 

"How about you, Mr. Zabini?" Remus said, kindly. "Mr. Blaise Zabini?" 

"You really were never told about our world?" Blaise asked. 

"Nope, nothing." Harry said, "I was always told that Magic didn't exist and that I was a freak for all the strange things I could do." 

Remus frowned and looked around. 

"You there with that quill that is writing itself," Harry called. 

"Rita Skeeter. Daily Prophet." The woman said. "Now, am I to take that you knew nothing of your fame, fortune, and magic until Mr. Hagrid told you? Me, Myself, and I want to know. Not to mention my avid readers." 

"I'm sorry I picked you." Harry deadpanned. "But the answer is no. I knew nothing." 

She nodded at the quill that wrote something. 

"And why was it Mr. Hagrid that came to get you?" she continued. 

"What do you mean?" Harry asked. 

"She means that it is practice for a _teacher_ to visit a student," McGonagall explained. "Mostly muggle-borns of course. But, the question is a valid one. I was not aware that someone was coming to visit you or I would have come myself. At this time Hagrid was not a teacher so this is most inappropriate." 

"The Headmaster sent me," Hagrid informed importantly. 

Madam Umbridge smiled evilly. She began an inquisition on Dumbledore asking him why he would send the groundskeeper who couldn't even use magic to meet Harry. 

Everyone wanted answers so they allowed her to continue and Rita Skeeter was doing a happy dance at the Ravenclaw table watching her quill write and correcting a few things now and then. 

Remus finally began reading again. 

**"STOP! I FORBID YOU!" yelled Uncle Vernon in panic.**

**Aunt Petunia gave a gasp of horror.**

**"Ah, go boil yer heads, both of yeh," said Hagrid. "Harry -- yer a wizard."**

**There was silence inside the hut. Only the sea and the whistling wind could be heard.**

**"I'm a what ?" gasped Harry.**

**"A wizard, o' course," said Hagrid, sitting back down on the sofa, which groaned and sank even lower, "an' a thumpin' good 'un, I'd say, once yeh've been trained up a bit. With a mum an' dad like yours, what else would yeh be? An' I reckon it's abou' time yeh read yer letter."**

**Harry stretched out his hand at last to take the yellowish envelope, addressed in emerald green to Mr. H. Potter, The Floor, Hut-on-the-Rock, The Sea. He pulled out the letter and read:**

**HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY**

**Headmaster: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE**

**(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)**

**Dear Mr. Potter,**

**We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.**

**Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.**

**Yours sincerely,**

**Minerva McGonagall,**

**Deputy Headmistress.**

**Questions exploded inside Harry's head like fireworks and he couldn't decide which to ask first. After a few minutes he stammered, "What does it mean, they await my owl?"**

"That's your first question?" Remus laughed. 

**"Gallopin' Gorgons, that reminds me," said Hagrid, clapping a hand to his forehead with enough force to knock over a cart-horse, and from yet another pocket inside his overcoat he pulled an owl -- a real, live, rather ruffled-looking owl -- a long quill, and a roll of parchment. With his tongue between his teeth he scribbled a note that Harry could read upside down:**

**Dear Professor Dumbledore,**

**Given Harry his letter.**

**Taking him to buy his things tomorrow.**

**Weather's horrible. Hope you're well.**

**Hagrid**

**Hagrid rolled up the note, gave it to the owl, which clamped it in its beak, went to the door, and threw the owl out into the storm. Then he came back and sat down as though this was as normal as talking on the telephone.**

**Harry realized his mouth was open and closed it quickly.**

Harry rolled his eyes and gave his latest essay to Snape.

**"Where was I?" said Hagrid, but at that moment, Uncle Vernon, still ashen-faced but looking very angry, moved into the firelight.**

**"He's not going," he said.**

**Hagrid grunted.**

**"I'd like ter see a great Muggle like you stop him," he said.**

**"A what?" said Harry, interested.**

**"A Muggle," said Hagrid, "it's what we call nonmagic folk like them. An' it's your bad luck you grew up in a family o' the biggest Muggles I ever laid eyes on."**

**"We swore when we took him in we'd put a stop to that rubbish," said Uncle Vernon, "swore we'd stamp it out of him! Wizard indeed!"**

**"You knew ?" said Harry. "You knew I'm a -- a wizard?"**

**"Knew!" shrieked Aunt Petunia suddenly. "Knew! Of course we knew! How could you not be, my dratted sister being what she was? Oh, she got a letter just like that and disappeared off to that -- that school -- and came home every vacation with her pockets full of frog spawn, turning teacups into rats. I was the only one who saw her for what she was -- a freak! But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and Lily that, they were proud of having a witch in the family!"**

**She stopped to draw a deep breath and then went ranting on. It seemed she had been wanting to say all this for years.**

**"Then she met that Potter at school and they left and got married and had you, and of course I knew you'd be just the same, just as strange, just as -- as -- abnormal -- and then, if you please, she went and got herself blown up and we got landed with you!"**

**Harry had gone very white. As soon as he found his voice he said, "Blown up? You told me they died in a car crash!"**

**"CAR CRASH!" roared Hagrid, jumping up so angrily that the Dursleys scuttled back to their corner. "How could a car crash kill Lily an' James Potter? It's an outrage! A scandal! Harry Potter not knowin' his own story when every kid in our world knows his name!"**

"CAR CRASH?!" more people yelled. 

"I hate these books." Harry sighed, shaking his head. "I'm getting tired. After this, we'll call it a night." 

**"But why? What happened?" Harry asked urgently.**

**The anger faded from Hagrid's face. He looked suddenly anxious.**

**"I never expected this," he said, in a low, worried voice. "I had no idea, when Dumbledore told me there might be trouble gettin' hold of yeh, how much yeh didn't know. Ah, Harry, I don' know if I'm the right person ter tell yeh -- but someone's gotta -- yeh can't go off ter Hogwarts not knowin'."**

**He threw a dirty look at the Dursleys.**

**"Well, it's best yeh know as much as I can tell yeh -- mind, I can't tell yeh everythin', it's a great myst'ry, parts of it..."**

**He sat down, stared into the fire for a few seconds, and then said, "It begins, I suppose, with -- with a person called -- but it's incredible yeh don't know his name, everyone in our world knows--"**

**"Who?"**

**"Well -- I don' like sayin' the name if I can help it. No one does."**

**"Why not?"**

**"Gulpin' gargoyles, Harry, people are still scared. Blimey, this is difficult. See, there was this wizard who went... bad. As bad as you could go. Worse. Worse than worse. His name was..."**

**Hagrid gulped, but no words came out.**

**"Could you write it down?" Harry suggested.**

**"Nah -- can't spell it. All right -- Voldemort." Hagrid shuddered. "Don' make me say it again. Anyway, this -- this wizard, about twenty years ago now, started lookin' fer followers. Got 'em, too -- some were afraid, some just wanted a bit o' his power, 'cause he was gettin' himself power, all right. Dark days, Harry. Didn't know who ter trust, didn't dare get friendly with strange wizards or witches... terrible things happened. He was takin' over. 'Course, some stood up to him -- an' he killed 'em. Horribly. One o' the only safe places left was Hogwarts. Reckon Dumbledore's the only one You-Know-Who was afraid of. Didn't dare try takin' the school, not jus' then, anyway.  
"Now, yer mum an' dad were as good a witch an' wizard as I ever knew. Head boy an' girl at Hogwarts in their day! Suppose the myst'ry is why You-Know-Who never tried to get 'em on his side before... probably knew they were too close ter Dumbledore ter want anythin' ter do with the Dark Side.**

**"Maybe he thought he could persuade 'em... maybe he just wanted 'em outta the way. All anyone knows is, he turned up in the village where you was all living, on Halloween ten years ago. You was just a year old. He came ter yer house an' -- an'--"**

**Hagrid suddenly pulled out a very dirty, spotted handkerchief and blew his nose with a sound like a foghorn.**

**"Sorry," he said. "But it's that sad -- knew yer mum an' dad, an' nicer people yeh couldn't find -- anyway...**

**"You-Know-Who killed 'em. An' then -- an' this is the real myst'ry of the thing -- he tried to kill you, too. Wanted ter make a clean job of it, I suppose, or maybe he just liked killin' by then. But he couldn't do it. Never wondered how you got that mark on yer forehead? That was no ordinary cut. That's what yeh get when a powerful, evil curse touches yeh -- took care of yer mum an' dad an' yer house, even -- but it didn't work on you, an' that's why yer famous, Harry. No one ever lived after he decided ter kill 'em, no one except you, an' he'd killed some o' the best witches an' wizards of the age -- the McKinnons, the Bones, the Prewetts -- an' you was only a baby, an' you lived."  
Something very painful was going on in Harry's mind. As Hagrid's story came to a close, he saw again the blinding flash of green light, more clearly than he had ever remembered it before -- and he remembered something else, for the first time in his life: a high, cold, cruel laugh.**

**Hagrid was watching him sadly.**

**"Took yeh from the ruined house myself, on Dumbledore's orders. Brought yeh ter this lot..."**

"You took me on Dumbledore's orders?" Harry asked, "But how did Dumbledore know that my family was attacked and that I would survive?" 

Everyone in the hall began talking about this. 

"And you know what? Now that I think about it, this was on October 31st and I was delivered to the Dursleys on November 1st. What happened in the time between. It doesn't take twenty-four hours to travel from Godric's Hollow to Surry does it? I don't think so." 

"It doesn't." Remus frowned. "A few hours at the most. Where were you during that missing time?" 

Dumbledore was seeing red. He had to get rid of these books. 

**"Load of old tosh," said Uncle Vernon. Harry jumped; he had almost forgotten that the Dursleys were there. Uncle Vernon certainly seemed to have got back his courage. He was glaring at Hagrid and his fists were clenched.**

**"Now, you listen here, boy," he snarled, "I accept there's something strange about you, probably nothing a good beating wouldn't have cured -- and as for all this about your parents, well, they were weirdoes, no denying it, and the world's better off without them in my opinion -- asked for all they got, getting mixed up with these wizarding types -- just what I expected, always knew they'd come to a sticky end--"**

**But at that moment, Hagrid leapt from the sofa and drew a battered pink umbrella from inside his coat. Pointing this at Uncle Vernon like a sword, he said, "I'm warning you, Dursley -- I'm warning you -- one more word..."**

**In danger of being speared on the end of an umbrella by a bearded giant, Uncle Vernon's courage failed again; he flattened himself against the wall and fell silent.**

**"That's better," said Hagrid, breathing heavily and sitting back down on the sofa, which this time sagged right down to the floor.  
Harry, meanwhile, still had questions to ask, hundreds of them.**

**"But what happened to Vol-, sorry -- I mean, You-Know-Who?"**

**"Good question, Harry. Disappeared. Vanished. Same night he tried ter kill you. Makes yeh even more famous. That's the biggest myst'ry, see... he was gettin' more an' more powerful -- why'd he go?**

**"Some say he died. Codswallop, in my opinion. Dunno if he had enough human left in him to die. Some say he's still out there, bidin' his time, like, but I don' believe it. People who was on his side came back ter ours. Some of 'em came outta kinda trances. Don' reckon they could've done if he was comin' back.  
"Most of us reckon he's still out there somewhere but lost his powers. Too weak to carry on. 'Cause somethin' about you finished him, Harry. There was somethin' goin' on that night he hadn't counted on -- I dunno what it was, no one does -- but somethin' about you stumped him, all right."**

**Hagrid looked at Harry with warmth and respect blazing in his eyes, but Harry, instead of feeling pleased and proud, felt quite sure there had been a horrible mistake. A wizard? Him? How could he possibly be? He'd spent his life being clouted by Dudley, and bullied by Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon; if he was really a wizard, why hadn't they been turned into warty toads every time they'd tried to lock him in his cupboard? If he'd once defeated the greatest sorcerer in the world, how come Dudley had always been able to kick him around like a football?**

**"Hagrid," he said quietly, "I think you must have made a mistake. I don't think I can be a wizard."**

**To his surprise, Hagrid chuckled.**

**"Not a wizard, eh? Never made things happen when you was scared or angry?"**

**Harry looked into the fire. Now he came to think about it... every odd thing that had ever made his aunt and uncle furious with him had happened when he, Harry, had been upset or angry... chased by Dudley's gang, he had somehow found himself out of their reach... dreading going to school with that ridiculous haircut, he'd managed to make it grow back... and the very last time Dudley had hit him, hadn't he got his revenge, without even realizing he was doing it? Hadn't he set a boa constrictor on him?  
Harry looked back at Hagrid, smiling, and saw that Hagrid was positively beaming at him.**

**"See?" said Hagrid. "Harry Potter, not a wizard -- you wait, you'll be right famous at Hogwarts."**

**But Uncle Vernon wasn't going to give in without a fight.**

**"Haven't I told you he's not going?" he hissed. "He's going to Stonewall High and he'll be grateful for it. I've read those letters and he needs all sorts of rubbish -- spell books and wands and--"**

**"If he wants ter go, a great Muggle like you won't stop him," growled Hagrid. "Stop Lily an' James Potter's son goin' ter Hogwarts! Yer mad. His name's been down ever since he was born. He's off ter the finest school of witchcraft and wizardry in the world. Seven years there and he won't know himself. He'll be with youngsters of his own sort, fer a change, an' he'll be under the greatest headmaster Hogwarts ever had Albus Dumbled--"**

**"I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD FOOL TO TEACH HIM MAGIC TRICKS!" yelled Uncle Vernon.**

**But he had finally gone too far. Hagrid seized his umbrella and whirled it over his head, "NEVER -- " he thundered, " -- INSULT -- ALBUS -- DUMBLEDORE -- IN -- FRONT -- OF -- ME!"**

**He brought the umbrella swishing down through the air to point at Dudley -- there was a flash of violet light, a sound like a firecracker, a sharp squeal, and the next second, Dudley was dancing on the spot with his hands clasped over his fat bottom, howling in pain. When he turned his back on them, Harry saw a curly pig's tail poking through a hole in his trousers.**

**Uncle Vernon roared. Pulling Aunt Petunia and Dudley into the other room, he cast one last terrified look at Hagrid and slammed the door behind them.  
Hagrid looked down at his umbrella and stroked his beard.**

**"Shouldn'ta lost me temper," he said ruefully, "but it didn't work anyway. Meant ter turn him into a pig, but I suppose he was so much like a pig anyway there wasn't much left ter do."**

**He cast a sideways look at Harry under his bushy eyebrows.**

**"Be grateful if yeh didn't mention that ter anyone at Hogwarts," he said. "I'm -- er -- not supposed ter do magic, strictly speakin'. I was allowed ter do a bit ter follow yeh an' get yer letters to yeh an' stuff -- one o' the reasons I was so keen ter take on the job."**

"You aren't allowed to use magic at all, Mr. Hagrid. " Umbridge pointed out. "Did you get permission for this from the Ministry?" 

"Headmaster Dumbledore, sir, gave meh permission," Hagrid informed. "He said that he cleared it with yeh he did."

"I will look into this." Umbridge said.

"That is my job." Madam Bones snapped. "I will look into this." 

Umbridge glared at the woman and looked like she wanted to kill her.

**Why aren't you supposed to do magic?" asked Harry.**

**"Oh, well -- I was at Hogwarts meself but I -- er -- got expelled, ter tell yeh the truth. In me third year. They snapped me wand in half an' everything. But Dumbledore let me stay on as gamekeeper. Great man, Dumbledore."**

**"Why were you expelled?"**

**"It's gettin' late and we've got lots ter do tomorrow," said Hagrid loudly. "Gotta get up ter town, get all yer books an' that."**

**He took off his thick black coat and threw it to Harry.**

**"You can kip under that," he said. "Don' mind if it wriggles a bit, I think I still got a couple o' dormice in one o' the pockets."**

"That's the end of the chapter," Remus said, with a sigh. 

"Bedtime, Dobby!" Harry called. 

Tables vanished and sleeping bags appeared. Everyone settled down and were talking to themselves.


End file.
